friday the 13th

Movie Night [Friday the 13th]: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Dr. K2 Comments

Long considered an unlucky day due to superstitions involving the number thirteen and religious connotations, Friday the 13th is equally well-known as a long-running series of slasher movies. As a result, this is clearly the best opportunity to take a look at the Friday the 13th (Various, 1980 to 2009) horror series and to commemorate this unlucky and dreaded date.

Released: 13 May 1988
Director: John Carl Buechler
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $2.8 million
Stars: Lar Park Lincoln, Kane Hodder, Kevin Blair, Susan Jennifer Sullivan, Susan Blu, and Terry Kiser

The Plot:
Unwittingly resurrected by traumatised, psychically-endowed Tina Shepard, decomposing serial killer Jason Voorhees (Hodder) renews his killing spree, only to match his brute strength against Tina’s psychic powers.

The Background:
Following the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), which popularised the “slasher” sub-genre, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) proved a surprising box office success. Despite producer/director Sean S. Cunningham distancing himself from the resulting franchise, which has been beset by negative reviews, Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981) and Friday the 13th Part 3 (ibid, 1982) were financial successes. Still, embarrassed by the franchise, Paramount tried to bring it to an end with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984). However, its financial success led to Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985), a disastrous experiment that saw Jason’s resurrection the following year. Despite a modest box office and mixed reviews, Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (McLoughlin, 1986) is now considered one of the best entries. Initial ideas for the seventh film included a potential crossover with Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), though Paramount and New Line Cinema couldn’t agree on how to best execute this and it would be some fifteen years before audiences saw this come to fruition. Instead, associate producer Barbara Sachs leaned towards the idea of granting the “Final Girl” telekinetic powers not unlike those of Carrie White (Sissie Spacek). Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood marked the first appearance of fan favourite Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees, setting a record for the longest uninterrupted onscreen controlled burn in Hollywood history and debuting one of Jason’s most horrific and iconic looks. With many explicitly gory scenes cut during post-production, The New Blood performed about the same at the box office as its predecessor and received largely negative reviews. Fans of the franchise, however, treat the film more fondly, regarding it as one of the better entries, and its poor reception didn’t stop Paramount producing an eighth instalment the following year.

The Review:
Seven movies into the slasher franchise and Jason Voorhees has become more than a rumour; he’s a legend. The long-dead “Crazy” Ralph (Walt Gorney) returns as an unseen narrator to give a quick rundown of Jason’s previous hits and misses, which have seen the “death curse” of Crystal Lake translate into “Jason Voorhees’ Curse”, with no mention of his mother or the tragedy that befell him as a child. It’s interesting that Crystal Lake is even called that here since such a big part of the previous movie revolved around the locals renaming the area “Forest Green” to disassociate themselves from Jason and his memory. Now, it’s just back to Crystal Lake with no explanation, which is odd. Even stranger is that no one stops our new crop of victims from hanging around the cursed lake and no one, save the pushy and manipulative Doctor Chris Crews (Kiser), is even aware of Jason. To be fair, it’s not stated how much time has passed since the ending of Jason Lives and the present day of The New Blood. It could’ve been years, so maybe the residents felt comfortable believing Jason was long gone. The New Blood takes a similar approach to The Final Chapter with the landscape of Crystal Lake and its forest, showing residential cabins placed around the lake, such as Tina’s childhood getaway and the cabin Nick Rogers (Blair) and his friends rent to surprise his cousin, Michael (William Butler). I would’ve liked to see The New Blood double down on this and have these be the same buildings from The Final Chapter, renovated and available to rent to bring some tourism to the local community. This doesn’t appear to be the case and nothing is mentioned about the town or what’s happened between Part VI and Part VII, meaning the New Blood title doesn’t just refer to Jason’s newest crop of victims but also the narrative, as the film’s almost like a soft reboot of the series in some ways.

Traumatised Tina finds her unique gifts being manipulated by the shifty Dr. Crews.

The New Blood adds some additional lore to Crystal Lake with its opening flashback, which shows young Tina (Jennifer Banko) fleeing to the lake to escape her parents’ constant arguing. Having witnessed her alcoholic father, John (John Otrin), strike her mother, Amanda (Blu), little Tina took a boat onto the lake and wailed her anguish and hatred to her father. Unfortunately for Tina (and John), her heightened emotional state triggered her unpredictable psychokinetic powers, causing John to fall into the lake and drown/be crushed be debris. The trauma of witnessing this and the guilt from having caused her father’s death scarred Tina, leading to her spending most of her life in therapy and in a psychiatric hospital under the care of Dr. Crews. Although Tina’s visibly uncomfortable at returning to Crystal Lake and Amanda is desperate to hide her concerns behind blind optimism, the Shepards return to their family cabin in what’s stated to be a last-ditch attempt to help Tina overcome her trauma. However, Dr. Crews is far more concerned with exploring and documenting Tina’s psychic abilities, badgering her into working herself into a state so she’ll perform parlour tricks for his camera. While he justifies this by saying that her powers and vivid delusions are manifestations of her guilt and thus intrinsically linked, it definitely seems like he’s less concerned with her wellbeing and more concerned with attained some kind of accolade for discovering her psychic powers. Annoyed when Tina gets distracted by Nick and his friends and frustrated by Tina’s reluctance to adhere to his demands, Dr. Crews constantly belittles Tina and waves away her panic when she starts seeing visions of dead bodies and accidentally reanimates Jason while remembering her father’s death. At her wit’s end and desperate to bring her daughter some peace, Amanda puts all her faith in Dr. Crews and is thus enraged to find that he’s been using and manipulating Tina, even more so when Dr. Crews decides Tina’s a lost cause and threatens to have her committed. While she struggles with her guilt and is noticeably uneasy around other people, Tina can’t help but be attracted to nice-guy Nick, who encourages her to socialise with his friends, takes an interest in her past and her feelings, and reacts with shocked amazement rather than horror and ridicule when her powers caused chaos and disruption.

Nice guy Nick is surrounded by largely forgettable or overly exaggerated victims.

Disturbed by her visions of death and Jason, Tina constantly tries to warn those around her and is repeatedly shot down. Dr. Crews refuses to entertain her wild claims as anything other than delusions and the catty Melissa Paur (Sullivan) openly mocks her, to the amusement of her otherwise disinterested friends, in a desperate attempt to discredit Tina so she (as in Melissa) can have Nick to herself (despite him quite bluntly stating that he doesn’t even like her!) Nick’s a bit of a bland do-gooder on the surface; he’s tall and ruggedly handsome but there isn’t much to him. He says he ran with a bad crowd and is trying to turn his life around, but he’s mainly there to offer Tina some affection outside of her family and to try (and fail) to shield her from Jason. His friends, however, are as painfully one-note as all the Friday the 13th victims, focused mainly on sex, skinning dipping in the freezing cold lake, drinking, and getting high. There are a few standouts from this largely cliché group, as ever: Eddie McCarlo (Jeff Bennett) fancies himself a science-fiction writer and regularly bores and freaks out his friends with his bizarre imagination, Robin Peterson (Elizabeth Kaitan) is a perky little stoner in contrast to shy Maddy Paulson (Diana Barrows) but doesn’t hesitate to put her friend down so she can claim clumsy stoner David Peabody (Jon Renfield) for herself, and Ben MacNeal (Craig Thomas) is having undisclosed issues with his girlfriend, Kate Pataki (Diane Almeida). The film tries to give Maddy an empowering moment when, in an effort to defy Robin’s claim that she needs “little touch-up work”, Maddy defiantly…goes and touches herself up with make-up. She then wanders outside calling for David as though expecting him to be in the dark forest and is unceremoniously killed. I quite liked Eddie, who is seduced by Melissa to try and make Nick jealous and storms out after she rejects him in an amusing scene, though the others are mostly forgettable and simply there to be eye candy and add to the kill count.

Jason looks more horrifying than ever and utilises some bizarre weapons.

The New Blood sees the debut of Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees, and boy does he embody the role in an instant! Sporting one of Jason’s most disturbing and iconic looks, the hulking Hodder stalks the forests and darkness of Crystal Lake with an enraged determination, as though Jason is royally pissed off at being disturbed by Tina. Now degenerated into a rotting, skeletal form and sporting a cracked mask and heavy chain around his neck, Jason appears more inhuman than ever and seemingly savours the hunt, never breaking from a brisk stride and as happy to stalk, taunt, and slowly off his victims as he is to crash through windows or catch them unawares. Jason sports an uncanny ability to sneak up on people, even when they’re barely looking the other way, and to get ahead of his fleeing victims, to say nothing of shrugging off nails, bullets, and blunt trauma thanks to functionally being a zombie. Exhibiting superhuman strength powerful enough to plunge his hand through chests and crush heads, Jason is surprisingly gentle with Nick in the finale, preferring to simply toss and throw him aside rather than crush his rib cage. Jason sports various weapons in The New Blood, from spiked implements, large kitchen knives, and even a party horn that he rams into Kate’s eye. This is taken to almost comical levels when Jason pursues Dr. Crews and Amanda through the forest and he attacks with a bizarre bladed implement, prompting Dr. Crews to use Amanda as a human shield! This respite is short-lived, however, as Jason soon comes after him with a motorised bench saw like he’s Leatherface (Various) or something! I have no idea where Jason got these weapons from or why he discards them, and we’re denied a decent look at the damage since the film’s butchered by cuts. Jason slices throats, hacks off heads, and leaves victims strewn around the forest to scare Tina but is visibly puzzled by the girl’s inexplicable psychic powers. Jason thus becomes fixated on Tina, not just because she’s the “Final Girl” but also because he sees there’s something different about her. Tina gives Jason a run for his money, tangling him up with nearby roots, electrocuting him, and causing his hockey mask to shatter so we get a good look at his gruesome, rotting visage.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Jason Lives marked a turning point for the Friday the 13th franchise. From the moment Jason was brought back as an undead killer, all bets were off and the series leaned more heavily into the supernatural for the following sequels. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; the formula was getting stale, after all. However, it’s still a bit weird to suddenly see psychic powers in this world. Tina is obviously a stand-in for Stephen King’s Carrie, a disturbed and emotionally distraught young woman who cannot control her powers, much less understand them. Tina’s ability to move objects with her mind is directly tied to her emotions, something Dr. Crews regularly manipulates just to see them in action. Tina’s also cursed with a degree of clairvoyance; she has visions of people’s deaths but is always too late to save them and is haunted by delusions of Jason that have her questioning her sanity. This makes Tina wary to be around others since her powers can be chaotic and they earn her scorn, fear and hatred even when characters have no reason to think it was Tina who caused Melissa’s necklace to break. Tina’s powers are seemingly limitless; she can combust matches, smash open floorboards, move roots and electrical wires, and even resurrect the dead if she concentrates hard enough. Sadly, her powers also appear really feeble. The only reason Jason doesn’t just snap her in two is because the script says he must stand there gawping at her while Tina flings nails at him, douses him in gasoline, and hangs him from the ceiling. Indeed, when Jason gets his grubby mitts on her, Tina’s largely helpless and dependant on Nick to save her cute ass. The technology just wasn’t there to make Tina’s powers look threatening enough to Jason, who was made to look like a chump during their “fight”, and it makes for a very poor substitute for a throwdown between Freddy and Jason. Perhaps if Tina’s powers had been more pyrokinetic things might’ve been different but, as is, her abilities seem more bizarre than formidable and make The New Blood one of the stranger entries in the franchise.

While some of the kills are good or even iconic, Tina’s psychic powers are pretty lamely realised.

It’s also one of the most butchered. Sure, we get some great shots of Jason’s spine, skull, and bones sticking out from his ragged clothes and the effects used on his ghastly face are top-notch (it may very well be the best Jason look ever!) but this doesn’t excuse the disappointingly bloodless kills. This is doubly disappointing as there are some creative weapons and methods at play in The New Blood, with Jason resorting to simple stabbing and tossing people to their deaths alongside more elaborate means of killing, such as launching an axe into Russell Bowen’s (Larry Cox) face and stabbing Maddy with a scythe. The movie’s not entirely bloodless, of course: we see severed heads and blood splatters and a lot of time is spent lingering on the mangled corpses of Jason’s victims. In a way, this is a bit more horrific than if we’d seen the deaths in detail since your imagination can fill in the blanks…but Dr. Crews was such a dick, I wanted to see him get shredded by that weed-wacker! I liked that Jason didn’t simply go around swinging a machete and tried a few different things here, even if some of his kills largely amounted to the same thing (David may as well have been stabbed by a machete, for example, same with Amanda, especially as Jason discards that unique weapon). Of course, the most memorable kill in The New Blood is Judy Williams’ (Debora Kessler). Her and her boyfriend, Dan Carter (Michael Schroeder), are a couple of randoms Jason attacks while camping (an odd choice given these roles could’ve been filled by some of Nick’s friends). He plunges a fist though Dan’s back and snaps his neck and then drags Judy from their tent while she’s still in her sleeping bag. Hauling her across the brambles, Jason slams her against a tree, snapping her spine and leaving her a horrified, bloody mess. It’s a simple, exceedingly brutal kill that stands as one of the best in the franchise. Naturally, we also get a bit of sex and nudity here, far more than in Jason Lives but still less than I’d like. Despite being a horny little she-devil, Melissa never gets any action and has to settle for an axe to the head, though Robin, Kate, and Sandra Casey (Heidi Kozak) all get a chance to get naked and have some sexy times before being butchered.

When Jason proves to be unstoppable, Tina summons her dead father to take care of business.

Unable to convince anyone that her visions are real and desperate to help her mother, Tina drags a confused Nick all through the forest and the cabin trying to find Amanda before it’s too late. She discovers newspaper clippings about Jason in Dr. Crews’ drawer and realises he knew she was telling the truth about “the man in the lake” and has been trying to gaslight her into thinking she’s crazy. Unfortunately, Tina’s unable to save her mother and Nick finds the cabin empty, save for Eddie’s slaughtered corpse and a disbelieving Melissa. His friends are just hanging around in the forest, though, their bodies on display to lure Tina back into the cabin, where Jason attacks. Although Nick tries to fight the monster off, he’s tossed aside like nothing and, grief-stricken and enraged, Tina finally unleashes her full power. Using her destructive psychic powers, Tina shatters Jason’s mask, hanging him by a cord, and drops him into the basement. When he drags her down with him, Tina douses him in gasoline and sets him on fire, with her and Nick barely escaping the house before it inexplicably explodes. They’re relief is short-lived, however, as Jason reappears on the docks, sporting no evidence of being set on fire or caught in an explosion. Though Nick tries to fend him off with a gun, Jason is unfazed and closes in for the kill. Hurt and desperate, Tina summons all her power and, unbelievably, causes her father (who’s looking remarkably well for a guy trapped underwater for years) to burst up from the lake. John’s clearly agonised spirit wraps a chain around Jason’s neck and drags him back into the cold depths, ending the film on a bit of an anti-climax as Tina and Nick are rescued by emergency services. Quite why John’s body was still in the lake is beyond me. Tina “felt” him earlier, but it turned out to be Jason and I don’t see why her father’s body couldn’t have been recovered after he fell in when she was a child. I guess it’s supposed to be a call-back to the first and third parts, but it felt quite lame and cartoonish in execution, much like Tina’s powers.

The Summary:
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is a bit of a disappointment for me. A lot of this has to do with my fondness for the previous film, which is still one of my favourites; nostalgia gives Jason Livs an edge that The New Blood lacks. I tried to cut it some slack on this viewing, but there are a lot of elements that don’t work for me. As much as I liked the score from Jason Lives being recycled, it felt quite repetitive and the weird, jingly, fairy tale music used when Tina used her powers got old fast. I quite liked Tina, even though she was a bit bland and pure. I liked the struggle she faced with her guilt and her powers and she had some cute chemistry with Nick, despite him being a white-meat good guy. It was nice that he just accepted Tina and gave her unconditional encouragement and affection. Dr. Crews and Melissa made for interesting secondary antagonists. While Melissa was ridiculously one-note, she was such a conniving bitch, making her comeuppance well deserved. I would’ve liked to see Dr. Crews’ motivations explored a bit more: maybe he could’ve been trying to profit from Tina, or purposely using her to resurrect Jason for some reason. Nick’s friends were alright, but largely forgettable and full of dumb decisions. The group offered nothing we hadn’t seen in every Friday the 13th movie prior to this one and we were even denied the satisfaction of some gory kills since The New Blood has been hacked to death worse than Jason’s victims! I fully believe The New Blood is highly rated purely because of Kane Hodder’s performance and unique appearance as Jason, the bizarre weapons he uses, and that sleeping bag kill. These elements are far more memorable than the lame-ass psychic powers and the weak-ass showdown between Jason and Tina, where the formally menacing Jason just stands around and lets her make him look like a fool. Jason’s look is incredible here, almost unmatched, and seems to be where all the time and budget went. It’s such a shame as the concept had a lot of potential and I liked the suggestion that Tina was descending into madness because of her abilities and visions. The execution was lacking and hampered by the technology of the time, however, and the gory effects are completely wasted as the film cuts away before we can see them in all their glory. I appreciate the effort to try and do something new, but I think The New Blood needed another go-around at the scriptwriting stage. Jason looks great, better than ever, but it’s not enough to keep this one from being pretty dull at the end of the day.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Is Friday the 13th VII: The New Blood one of your favourites of the franchise? What did you think to Tina, her trauma, and her bizarre psychic powers? Which of Nick’s friends was your favourite and which death scene were you most disappointed by? Do you agree that the sleeping bag kill is one of the franchise’s most iconic? What did you think to Jason’s look and his showdown with Tina? Is Kane Hodder your favourite Jason actor Are you watching a Friday the 13th movie today? Whatever your thoughts on Friday the 13th (the movie, franchise, and day), leave them down below, support me on Ko-Fi, and check out my other horror content.

Movie Night [Friday the 13th]: Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Dr. K3 Comments

Long considered to be an unlucky day due to superstitions involving the number thirteen and religious connotations, Friday the 13th is perhaps equally as well-known as being the title for a long-running series of slasher movies. As a result, this is clearly the best opportunity to take a look at the Friday the 13th (Various, 1980 to 2009) horror series and to commemorate this unlucky and dreaded date.

Released: 1 August 1986
Director: Tom McLoughlin
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $3 million
Stars: Thom Mathews, C.J. Graham, Jennifer Cooke, Renée Jones, Kerry Noonan, and David Kagen

The Plot:
After being released from a sanatorium, grown-up Tommy Jarvis (Matthews) attempts to cremate the body of deceased serial killer Jason Voorhees (Graham). However, an errant lightning bolt resurrects Jason and only Tommy holds the key to stopping him.

The Background:
After the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), which basically gave birth to horror’s “slasher” sub-genre, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) proved a surprising box office success. Although producer/director Sean S. Cunningham distanced himself from the franchise, which was plagued by negative reviews, Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981) and Friday the 13th Part 3 (ibid, 1982) were financial successes. Yet, Paramount executives were embarrassed by their association with the franchise and planned to close the book on Jason with Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984). A box office gross of $33 million made The Final Chapter a commercial success, meaning this “Final Chapter” was nothing of the sort. Although Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (Steinmann, 1985) seemed to be setting up a new killer, its disastrous critical reception and audience backlash convinced the producers to bring Jason back the following year. Director Tom McLoughlin was given free rein to accomplish this and took inspiration from the classic Universal Monster movies to reimagine Jason as an undead monster. He also consciously shied away from nudity, anticipated censorship struggles, and adopted more comedic slant. Despite this new direction, star John Shepard was approached to return as Tommy but turned it down, allowing horror alumni Thom Mathews to step into (and take over) the role. Initially, stuntman Dan Bradley was cast as Jason but he was replaced by former soldier C.J. Graham after the producers were dissatisfied with his performance. Ironically, despite returning Jason to the franchise, Jason Lives actually made less than A New Beginning, totalling $19.4 million worldwide, leading producers to consider a horror crossover for their next instalment. Incidentally, Jason Lives was also met with mixed reviews; while some labelled it as predictable and nonsensical, others have called it one of the best in the entire franchise.

The Review:
I’ve mentioned it before, but I was not a fan of horror movies as a child. I would hide behind my comics and often had nightmares after catching even a glimpse of the genre’s most iconic killers. Because of this, I was a late bloomer when it came to the Friday the 13th franchise and the first entry that I ever saw was Jason Lives, though I was acutely aware of Jason’s status as a mainstream horror icon. Jason Lives actually went a long way to helping desensitise me to horror, with its tongue-in-cheek presentation and over the top aesthetic that made it more entertaining than terrifying. However, I remember watching it with only the vaguest knowledge of the franchise and being a little confused by the opening sequence. At the time, I genuinely thought Tommy was remembering Jason murdering his family and that the echoing cries of “Die! Die! Die!” were from Jason rather than the young Tommy! Obviously, I now know better but I think that’s a fun anecdote, almost as much fun as the film’s opening sequence, which mirrors the opening of A New Beginning but expands upon it. It now takes place in canon, for one thing, against the background of a stormy night. For another, it has Tommy (now recast and reimagined to be far less volatile) be the one who digs up Jason’s grave. Like his predecessor (the canonicity of which is up for debate), Tommy is traumatised by his encounter with Jason but, while one could argue he’s a bit dull compared to John Shepard’s unstable ass-kicker, he exhibits an intense drive to not only confirm for himself that Jason is dead, but to destroy his body forever. To that end, he risks reincarceration to return to Crystal Lake (now rechristened Forest Green) alongside his reluctant and anxious friend, Allen Hawes (Ron Palillo), with Jason’s mask in his possession in order to cremate his remains and set his demons to rest once and for all.

Tommy desperately tries to make amends after accidentally resurrecting Jason.

Although it’s said that Tommy suffers from hallucinations of Jason, this isn’t an aspect we see here. Instead, Tommy hopes that destroying Jason’s body will stop the visions and his recurring nightmares, but he’s driven into rage upon the sight of Jason’s rotting corpse and reliving his childhood and stabs the worm-infested remains repeatedly with a metal fence pole. Unfortunately, Tommy accidentally provides Jason with the means to return to life (something he could’ve never predicted) and is thus responsible for the mayhem and murder Jason causes throughout the film. Although Tommy tries to get ahead of this by warning the local sheriff, Mike Garris (Kagen), he is met with hostility and scepticism because of his maniacal behaviour and background. Frustrated and branded a nut-job, Tommy can only sit in his cell and wait to be transferred back to his psychiatric hospital since Sheriff Garris is determined to help Forest Green move on from Jason, Crystal Lake, and the horrors associated with both. In a desperate attempt to prove his story, Tommy escapes custody when being escorted out of town, only to find the cemetery groundskeeper, Martin (Bob Larkin), has covered Jason’s body up. Tommy is even implicated in the murders that follow since Sheriff Garris refuses to believe that Jason has returned and finds it far more likely that Tommy is going on a killing spree. Burdened by guilt and desperate to atone for his actions, Tommy is frustrated at the lack of support he receives, especially considering his unique insight into Jason. Where John Shepard would attack anyone who provoked him with an explosive violence and was sullen and withdrawn, Thom Matthews presents Tommy as intelligent, flirtatious, and determined to put Jason down for good, by any means necessary, even if it means employing quasi-supernatural means to counter Jason’s otherworldly force. Although it’s disappointing that we didn’t see Tommy take over as the new killer, Jason Lives does play with this a little bit. Sheriff Garris is convinced that Tommy is behind the recent killings and even refers to him as Jason at one point, though Tommy remains the pure-hearted, if flawed, hero of the piece.

Ballsy Megan and some colourful supporting characters actually make me care about Jason’s victims.

While locked up, Tommy catches the eye of Sheriff Garris’s playful, rebellious, and provocative daughter, Megan (Cooke). One of the new breed of camp counsellors, Megan and her friends – responsible Paula Mott (Noonan), cackling Alice Cooper aficionado Carter “Cort” Andrews (Tom Fridley), and prankster Elizabeth “Sissy” Baker (Jones) – are left to look after the young kids who’ve arrived for summer camp. However, they have no clue what they’re supposed to do since head counsellors Darren Robinson (Tony Goldwyn) and Paula’s sister, Lizbeth (Nancy McLoughlin), fail to show up due to a slight case of death. Sheriff Garris isn’t immediately bothered by Megan’s plight and is more concerned with keeping her away from Tommy, who warns of Jason at every opportunity. Since she apparently likes a bad boy, Megan openly flirts with Tommy right in front of her father and willingly goes out of her way to assist him, even briefly hiding him for her dad by thrusting his head between her legs in her prized convertible. Megan was raised believing Jason was nothing but a legend but, while she and Sissy are intrigued by Tommy’s wild claims about Jason’s return, they find the idea of caring for the crop of screaming, cynical kids a far more pressing and terrifying threat. The teens try their best to entertain the kids but they struggle to impress or interest the pessimistic youngsters. It doesn’t help that they’re distracted by Darren and Lizbeth’s absence or that Cort takes off with the rambunctious Nicola “Nikki” Parsley (Darcy DeMoss). Still, while the wannabe counsellors are as painfully cliché as ever, I found them enjoyable. With the exception of Paula, they all exhibit a fair amount of personality, meaning it was genuinely distressing when Jason tore through them. I also enjoyed the cantankerous Sheriff Garris, who’s just trying to protect his daughter and maintain peace after years of bloodshed. His aggravation and aggression towards Tommy is perfectly reasonable, but I liked how he protected Megan from Jason in the finale, even though it meant his death. Finally, Jason Lives impresses by including a bunch of enjoyable (if disposable) tertiary characters to up the body count. The company executives paintballing in the woods are surprisingly entertaining with their banter and annoyance, Darren and Lizbeth exhibit an awareness of the genre and situation (though it does little to save them), and even Martin makes an impression by being a bitter, paranoid drunk.

Undead and more powerful than ever, Jason make a dramatic and entertaining return to form.

Although A New Beginning stated that Jason had been cremated, this is ignored (and the explanation was sadly excised) and Jason begins the film as a festering, ghastly corpse. While Jason exhibited superhuman strength, stamina, and dexterity in the previous films, to the point where he was an almost supernatural force, Jason Lives explicitly reimagines him as an undead and nigh-unstoppable killing machine. Resurrected by lightning, Jason immediately showcases his newfound, unnatural strength by ripping Hawes’ heart out and stalking the surrounding woodland with almost a brazen arrogance. In previous films, Jason’s appearance was often hidden or accomplished through first-person perspectives that built up to his eventual full reveal and dominance of the final act. While some aspects of this remain in Jason Lives, Jason gets far more screen time than ever before and is unquestionably positioned as the star. Jason Lives adds a surprising humanity to Jason, especially considering he’s a mindless, rage-filled zombie now. For the first time, the local summer camp is populated by little children but Jason never attempts to harm them. Young Nancy (Courtney Vickery) is terrified when she sees him, and Jason comes dangerously close to her, but he seems more curious and perhaps sympathetic towards them. Indeed, the only reason he even comes near them is when he’s pursuing his more traditional quarry and I liked the implication that he feels a kinship towards children, even though he was clearly trying to kill young Tommy in The Final Chapter. Although we never get a good look at his mangled, rotting visage, this is one of my favourite looks for Jason. He dons his iconic hockey mask and sports dirty, dishevelled attire that he progressively adds to throughout the film as he takes Tommy’s gloves and a tool belt from the ill-fated paintballers. I also appreciated that Jason used a variety of means to dispatch his quarry, including the metal pole Tommy stuck him with and his immense undead strength rather than relying solely on his trademark machete.

The Nitty-Gritty:
While I fully admit to being biased towards Jason Lives and consider it one of the best in the franchise, the film boasts perhaps the best score of all the Friday the 13th films. Harry Manfredini returns as the composer, delivering the classic “Ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma!” theme and bolstering it was a truly haunting, almost sing-song melody that creates a haunting atmosphere and some solid, impactful orchestral whenever Jason appears on screen to really give him a bombastic presentation. Jason Lives is full of cheeky nods to horror cinema: Jason’s resurrection evokes Frankenstein (Whale, 1931), as does “Karloff’s General Store”; there’s name-drops to Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham and the great John Carpenter, and little Nancy and her terrified prayer surely reference A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984). Oddly, horror isn’t the only genre referenced in Jason Lives as the opening titles include a parody of the James Bond gun barrel sequence. Indeed, parody (or, at least, comedic metacommentary) is a prominent aspect of the film: Martin addresses the camera and comments on the youth of the day, the immortal Alice Cooper’s music features prominently throughout the film; and we get such amusing scenes as Jason slamming a victim into a tree and leaving a bloody smiley face in the bark and a desperate woman offering Jason cash and her American Express card floating uselessly in a puddle next to her body. There’s just a sense of playful self-awareness throughout the film that really leans into the idea of Jason being a mainstream icon. While you could argue that this diminishes Jason’s terrifying aura, there are plenty of shots and moments that frame him as a horrifying threat and it’s fun actually rooting for him rather than against him. He’s like the straight man to a handful of more ludicrous characters, which actually allows him to be more dangerous and unhinged than ever.

Jason’s newfound power results in some fun, unique, and brutal kills.

If there’s one downside to Jason Lives, it’s that it’s very light on sex and nudity. We get one scene where Cort is getting it on with Nikki but it’s extremely tame and Nikki doesn’t even take her shirt off. Luckily, the film makes up for it was some fun and surprisingly gory kills. Jason wastes no time asserting himself and making the most of his ridiculous new strength. He rips Hawes’ heart out within the first ten minutes and takes to the forest, metal pole in hand, encountering the lost counsellors, whom he first intimidates and then impales with his pole. Jason (played by Dan Bradley for this one scene) increases his body count considerably when he encounters five corporate executives paintballing the forest (with three of them already helpfully wearing bandanas that read “DEAD”). He rips angry sexist Burt Dennenbrough’s (Wallace Merck) arm off, acquiring his machete, scores three kills in one when he beheads Katie Rice (Ann Ryerson) and siblings Stan (Matthew Faison) and Larry Irving (Alan Blumenfeld) with one swipe. Of course, not every kill is as memorable as I’d like thanks, as always, to censorship. Sissy’s head twist and decapitation is sadly tame, and Martin and lovers Steven Halavex (Roger Rose) and Annette Edwards (Cynthia Kania) are offed in disappointingly lame fashion. Yet, on the plus side, bland Paula ends up splattered all over in the inside of a cabin. Cort and Nikki’s ends are equally impressive, with Nikki having her face rammed through the RV wall and Cort being stabbed right through the head, leading to a fantastic shot of Jason standing triumphantly atop the flaming wreckage. Easily the best kills come in the film’s final act where Jason crushes Officer Pappas’ (Michael Swan) head (thankfully with no lame-ass 3D eye popping effect) and then folds Sheriff Garris top to tail, snapping his spine and leaving him a mangled mess right before her daughter’s eyes.

With a great effort, Tommy and Megan manage to trap Jason beneath the lake and end his threat…

Since Jason has literally returned from the dead and is a walking zombie this time around, he’s even more impervious to physical harm than ever. He shrugs off a shovel to the back of the head, rips limbs from bodies, barely registers gunshots and easily pops right back up after being blasted by a shotgun. Thus, stopping Jason this time requires a far more unique approach than just hacking his head in, so Tommy researches the occult to figure out how to dispose of his nightmarish enemy. Despite constant opposition from Sheriff Garris, and being labelled as a psychotic murderer, Tommy receives help from horny, rebellious Megan and acquires the supplies he needs to enact his plan. Unfortunately, a large part of this plan involves luring Jason into the open, which puts both him and Megan in considerable danger. With all her friends dead, her father and his deputies dead, and the little kids terrified out of their minds, Megan almost meets her own end when Jason tries to crush her head with his bare hands. However, he quickly forgets about her when challenged by Tommy. Clearly recognising his enemy’s voice, Jason willing pursues him into the lake, where Tommy waits with a chain attached to a boulder and surrounded by a ring of fire. While this seems like an oddly practical and far less supernatural solution than Tommy’s reading implied, Tommy wraps the chain around Jason’s neck but not before the undead killer trashes the boat. Although weighed down by the rock, Jason drags Tommy under and throttles him, seemingly killing him, so Megan swims out to rescue him. Although she almost suffers the same fate, she gets the boat’s outboard motor running and (despite the inconsistencies between shots and the distance between Jason and the blade) slices the propeller into Jason’s neck, apparently killing him once more. Once back on shore, Megan desperately and haphazardly manages to revive Tommy (conveniently Jason didn’t crush his neck) and he breathes a sigh of relief knowing Jason is finally in Hell once more…unaware that the monster still lives, trapped beneath the lake, burning with hatred and waiting to rise once more!

The Summary:
As I said, I’m biased but Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is still one of my favourites in the franchise, alongside The Final Chapter and the surprisingly brutal remake. I love how meta the film is, how tongue-in-cheek it approaches the material, and how it unapologetically knows exactly what it is: mindless shlock horror made to appeal to the masses. Jason Lives really has fun with the traditional slasher formula, commenting and playing with it and never taking itself too seriously, which was the shot in the arm the series needed after not just the last film but also falling victim to repetition. It’s outrageous to think that this once grounded, semi-realistic horror series now features a full-blown zombie killer, but it really works. Jason’s new undead abilities allow him to take centre stage and be the horror icon everyone wanted to see, and the film is a celebration of his iconography after trying to kill and replace him in the last two films. While it’s still clearly been censored, Jason Lives features some fun and unique kills with a fair amount of blood and Jason is continually framed as both a feature and a terrifying villain, especially in the enraged brutality and renewed aggression of his actions and stature. While Thom Mathews is admittedly quite dull and Tommy loses much of the edge he had in the last film, I think he did a good job as Jason’s more pure-hearted opposite, and I liked how he was treated as a pariah and a poison rather than the only one capable of stopping further bloodshed. Add to that a rocking soundtrack courtesy of Alice Cooper, some surprisingly memorable supporting characters, fun parodies and Easter Eggs to horror cinema and other genres, and you have a bombastic return to form for cinema’s most notorious masked madman! Entertaining from start to finish, Jason Lives is the perfect horror to slap on with some mates, a few drinks and snacks, and just have fun celebrating this long-running franchise. It set a new standard for Friday the 13th movies, one that not many after were able to live up to, and remains an absolute favourite of mine to this day.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Are you a fan of Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives? Do you consider it one of the stronger entries or were you put off by the change in direction? What did you think to Thom Matthews’ portrayal of Tommy and the way Jason returned? Which of the new characters was your favourite and which death scene entertained you the most? Do you think the series should’ve tried using Tommy as the killer or do you think it was the right decision to bring Jason back? Which Friday the 13th movie is your favourite? Do you consider Friday the 13th to be unlucky? Are you watching a Friday the 13th movie today? Whatever your thoughts on Friday the 13th (the movie, franchise, and day), go ahead and leave them down below and be sure to check in again for more horror content in the near future!

Movie Night [Friday the 13th]: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

Dr. K6 Comments

Long considered to be an unlucky day due to superstitions involving the number thirteen and religious connotations, Friday the 13th is perhaps equally as well-known as the title for a long-running series of slasher movies. Naturally, this is clearly the best opportunity to take a look at the Friday the 13th (Various, 1980 to 2009) horror series and to commemorate this unlucky and dreaded date.

Released: 22 March 1985
Director: Danny Steinmann
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $2.2 million
Stars: John Shepherd, Melanie Kinnaman, Shavar Ross, Carol Locatell, Tiffany Helm, Dick Wieand, and Tom Morga

The Plot:
Several years after murdering hockey-masked psychopath Jason Voorhees, a grown-up Tommy Jarvis (Shepherd) is interned at a halfway house for recuperation. However, when Jason (Morga) seemingly returns and a fresh batch of bodies start piling up, Tommy must face his demons head-on once more.

The Background:
Following John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) and the birth of the “slasher” genre, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) was a surprising box office success and this led to equally financially successful sequels. However, just as producer/director Sean S. Cunningham distanced himself from the franchise, so too did Paramount executives become embarrassed by their shlock franchise. Thus, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Zito, 1984) was developed to bring the series to a definitive end…before it proved to be a commercial success widely regarded as one of the best in the franchise. Consequently, a fifth entry followed only a year after the “Final Chapter”, one that was unusually deceptive in both it methodology and approach. Both stars John Shepherd and Dick Wieand were disappointed to find they’d been duped into a new Friday film and even the director was disgusted by how much footage was excised by the ratings board. Although child actor Corey Feldman could only return for a cameo, the film seemed to be setting Tommy up as the new killer of the franchise but A New Beginning’s disastrous critical reception and audience backlash saw Jason return for real in the very next film. As if being one of the lowest-grossing Friday films of the time with its $22 million box office wasn’t bad enough, A New Beginning is widely cited as one of the worst entries in the franchise.

The Review:
Jason may very well be one of the most, if not the most, prolific killers in all of horror cinema. His reputation as an unstoppable, merciless masked killer is well deserved not just because of his brutality but also because he categorically refuses to stay dead, even when film studios try to do him in! Branding The Final Chapter as the last-ever Friday the 13th was a bold claim, especially as the film ended with the pretty explicit suggestion that killing Jason had a negative effect on young Tommy. The film’s final, haunting shot suggested that Tommy would take over as the franchise’s killer and, honestly, I almost wish we’d seen that happen, at least for one or two movies. Not content with this blatant misdirection, A New Beginning opens with the suggestion that Jason is far from dead. In an opening that’s basically foreshadowing the next, far superior movie, young Tommy watches on, terrified and helpless, as Jason (here played by John Hock) rises from his grave in a zombie-like state to begin his killing spree anew. Sadly, we’d have to wait another year for this to come to pass and this promising opening is quickly revealed to simply be a vivid nightmare of the now grown-up Tommy. Yes, rather than following the traumatised youngster as he deals with the fallout of his actions and a newfound bloodlust rising within him, A New Beginning jumps ahead to find Tommy as the most mid-twenties-looking seventeen-year-old you’ll ever see in cinema but no less disturbed by his encounter with, and recurring visions of, Jason several years prior.

Traumatised by his childhood, Tommy is a deeply disturbed and haunted young man.

Now a disturbed, withdrawn youth, Tommy has bounced around numerous psychiatric hospitals and been subjected to every treatment and drug available short of electroshock therapy. Regardless of how poorly his treatments have taken, he’s been transferred to Pinehurst Halfway House, run by kindly Doctor Matt Letter (Richard Young) and his assistant, Pam Roberts (Kinnaman), in the hopes that he can be reacclimated back into society. Tommy is a very different character here; no longer the chirpy, enthusiastic, curious little boy, he’s sullen and moody and highly aggressive, carrying a nasty-looking flick knife and carrying a seething rage beneath his brooding exterior. Tommy is seen to be massively unstable, liable to flip on a dime and send Eddie Kelso (John Robert Dixon) hurtling through a table and mercilessly pummel anyone who touches him or riles him up with a sudden aggressive outburst. Yet, at the same time, Tommy still has some of his sentimental and playful side. He still carries a photo of his family and is still proud of his homemade masks, but he’s constantly on edge and triggered into violence by the slightest hint of hostility towards him. A New Beginning features two Jasons for the price of one; thanks to his childhood trauma, Tommy hallucinates and has nightmares of Jason, clad more or less in the same attire as he died in, despite it being explicitly stated that Jason was cremated after his death (a plot point later abandoned). The second Jason, though familiar, is noticeably different; not only is he dressed in different clothes, but his hockey mask also features prominent blue triangles rather than red and he’s very much real compared to the ghost that haunts Tommy. This Jason is just as brutal and superpowered as the last, easily manhandling his victims, crushing their bones, and surviving horrific injuries, lending credence to Tommy’s fears that Jason has returned from the grave.

Pinehurst shelters some eclectic, if one-dimensional and comically disturbed, kids.

In a change of pace from previous (and most other) Friday the 13th films, A New Beginning includes a gaggle of eclectic teenage misfits rather than horny camp counsellors, though Pinehurst’s residents are no less promiscuous and cliché. Functioning as an extremely lenient halfway house where the residents are free to do whatever they want thanks to the “honour system”, Pinehurst shelters Eddie and his lover Tina McCarthy (Debi Sue Voorhees), insecure stutterer Jake Patterson (Jerry Pavlon), goth Violet Moraine (Helm), blank slate Robin Brown (Juliette Cummins), compulsive eater Joey Burns (Dominick Brascia), and the violent and unstable Vic Faden (Mark Venturini). As you’d expect, the film wastes little time in establishing each character’s one defining trait and makes very little effort to expand them beyond that before they’re unceremoniously offed. Jake is humiliated when Robin mocks his affections and his corpse ends up in her bed, but she’s immediately killed before properly processing her remorse and grief. Indeed, all we really know about Robin is that she’s into films and a natural with kids. At least Violet has a unique look, her love for music, and her tendency to snap at people…but she’s knifed in the gut before she can do anything other than showcase her slick dance moves. Arguably, the most prominent members of the group are two who are barely even in the film. A loud and child-like teen, Joey desperately tries to be useful and make friends with everyone, only to constantly make a fool of himself. When he tries this with Vic (who really shouldn’t have had access to an axe), he ends up chopped to pieces, horrifying his fellow residents and leaving everyone shellshocked, particularly Tommy and oddly disturbed paramedic Roy Burns (Wiead). With Tommy’s sister, Trish (Kimberly Beck), reduced to a simple photograph, we’re left relying on Pam as our main girl. Of everyone in Pinehurst, Tommy is most receptive to Pam’s influence and persuasion, potentially because he reminds her of his sister or perhaps because of confusing sexual feelings towards her, but she has no idea what he’s seen or of the horrors Jason is capable of since she’s used to just dealing with unruly kids.

Charismatic and likeable, if zany, side characters steal the show and deserved more screen time.

In place of the smart-mouthed, resourceful young Tommy, we have standout character Reggie “The Reckless” Winter (Ross), son of Pinehurst’s grandfatherly cook, George (Vernon Washington). Reggie’s a lot like Tommy was as a child; he enjoys pranks and going where he’s not meant to and cheekily acting like he’s twice his age, especially with the ladies. As memorable and entertaining as Reggie is, he’s got nothing on his older, rockstar brother “Demon” (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) In a film stuffed with aggravating and forgettable characters, Demon is a breath of fresh air. From his pimped-out van, his smooth tongue, and his meme-worthy singing voice to his devotion to his little brother and his energetic charisma, it’s a real shame when Demon gets skewered while on the crapper. While Matt’s heart’s in the right place, Pinehurst has ruffled a few feathers with the townsfolk, specifically loudmouth hic Ethel Hubbard (Locatell) and her simpleton son Junior (Ron Sloan). Ethel’s outspoken and aggressive not just to Matt and his residents, but even the ineffectual Sheriff Cal Tucker (Marco St. John) and her own son, who she berates constantly, and isn’t afraid to threaten Matt’s horny and disruptive residents with violence when they trespass on her property. As aggravating as Ethel and Junior are, they definitely make the most of their roles; Ethel excels as a suspicious and infuriated redneck, barking colourful swears and treating everyone like dirt, even her simpleton son. Other notable and strangely fun side characters include greasers Pete Linley (Corey Parker) and Vinnie Manalo (Anthony Barrile), who are murdered while experiencing car trouble but make a bizarre impression with their banter and Vinnie’s amusing singsong about his broken-down car! However, this is merely the appetiser for what Demon has in store for us! A charismatic mixture of Prince and Michael Jackson, Demon woos his girlfriend, Anita (Jere Fields), with an infectious melody of “Ooh, baby!” but even his charm has kinks in it. He exhibits uncharacteristic anger when Anita winds him up and ends up struggling with his bowels after eating one too many enchiladas.

The Nitty-Gritty:
I think a good way to describe A New Beginning would be to simply sum it up as a waste of potential. I firmly believe there was a good idea buried in here somewhere; I can’t say if it would’ve been any better or worse if it had taken more cues from Halloween and reframed Tommy as the franchise’s new killer, but it certainly might have been more interesting than this awkward game of whodunnit. Revenge has always been a prominent theme in the Friday the 13th franchise and it’s alive and well here. Like Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) before him, Roy is driven to madness by a murderous lust for revenge but he’s clearly more unhinged (or the writing just wasn’t as good) since he slaughters his victims seemingly at random rather than targeting those actually responsible. In many ways, A New Beginning mirrors the first film; there, it was pretty damn obvious Pamela was the killer since she showed up at the last minute when everyone was dead, and it’s also pretty obvious that this Lou Ferrigno lookalike is our man since Roy hogs the camera and interjects himself into conversations that are nothing to do with him whenever he’s onscreen. It’s actually very comical; this nobody, who you could easily forget, just randomly pops up and may as well have a big sign over his head saying KILLER. Yet, rather than focus on his grief and descent into madness and appropriation of Jason’s legacy, the film focuses on running the genre’s cliches into the ground with nonsensical padding and zany side characters. The likes of Ethel and Junior and the wacky Pinehurst residents really drag the runtime and make this one of the most boring and tedious entries when really we should be focusing on whether Jason is really back, if Tommy is unknowingly possessed by or acting out the kills, or who the real culprit is but there’s precious few red herrings offered to us throughout.

Although possibly the horniest Friday yet, the film’s gore is butchered by censoring.

Of course, Friday the 13th is a franchise known for three things: Jason, gore, and sex…and A New Beginning certainly has its fair share of the latter. Without a doubt, this may well be the horniest film in the franchise; everyone’s either catcalling, leering, or out-right drooling over each other, especially the girls. Randomly, the film detours from the main plot to up the boobs and body count with waitress Lana Ardsley (Rebecca Wood) and moustachioed ladies’ man Billy Macauley’s (Bob DeSimone) sordid antics. However, while Lana flashes her tits with glee, she’s got nothing on Tina, who basically puts on a softcore porn in the woods with Eddie. While the killing starts when Tommy’s nightmare Jason makes short work of two foolhardy grave robbers (Todd Bryant and Curtis Conaway), this is sadly a double-edged sword as A New Beginning includes several gruesome kills but, thanks to meddling censoring, many are decidedly toothless. However, in some cases this actually works quite effectively; Joey’s hacked-up body is only briefly seen but there’s enough gore and astonished, horrified reactions to tell that Vic really did a number on the lad, and a quick shot of Pete being force-fed a flare is suitably wince-inducing. Unfortunately, Vinnie and Anita’s throat slashes leave a lot to be desired, as does Roy’s axe attack on Billy and Lana, and Roy’s offing of the random drifter (Sonny Shields) is so sudden that you’d miss it if you looked away for half a second. From here, it’s all a bit hit and miss; as gory as Tina’s gouged-up eyes are, I have to believe that she was originally decapitated by those shears, and Eddie is simply crushed to death by a belt across the face. There’s some tension as Roy toys with Demon and a surprisingly explicit shot of him being impaled, and I was more than grateful when Junior’s obnoxious wailing was literally cut off at the neck and Ethel got her head split open, but it’s all so toothless and fleeting and random.

Roy makes for an uninspired reveal, ruining the potential of placing Tommy as our new killer.

Interestingly, it’s Reggie who ends up finding all the dismembered bodies in the final act. Since Tommy’s missing and the bodies are all in his room, Reggie and Trish assume that he’s gone on a killing spree and flee from the masked psychopath into the storm-swept night. “Jason” pursues the two with superhuman persistence, again echoing the finales of the previous films, before being run down by Reggie in a tractor! However, when they stupidly stop to inspect the body, the wounded “Jason” springs to life and corners them in the barn, where Pam briefly fends him off with a chainsaw before Tommy makes a dramatic entrance. “Jason” seems as captivated by Tommy as Tommy is horrified by “Jason”. Thanks to his traumatic childhood and crippling hallucinations, Tommy hesitates and is nearly killed, but strikes a piercing wound with his knife. This lures “Jason” to the barn’s upper level, where Reggie, Pam, and Tommy fight “Jason” once more and drop him onto a bed of spikes below where they get a look at his unmasked face and are stunned to find that it was meek, unassuming Roy all along! However, it’s a little difficult to really get all that invested in Roy’s motivations. It’s mentioned that Joey is an orphan, whose father “took off” when he was little, severely undercutting my emotional investment in Roy’s killing spree. Sheriff Tucker delivers some stilted exposition about Roy’s character and motivations, speculating that he was driven to murder after abandoning his son as much as grief over his brutal murder. It’s pretty obvious that he’s more than just a forgettable side character by the glare he shoots Matt and down the camera after Joey is killed, but it’s easy to forget about him amidst the sex, kills, and Tommy’s apparent descent into madness. Speaking of which, despite facing and conquering his demon once more, Tommy continues to be tormented by nightmares; he envisions himself killing Pam, then Jason standing over his bed ominously. Although Tommy seems to force the apparition to disappear once and for all, the film ends with the suggestion that Jason’s spirit has taken root in Tommy’s body. He dons Roy’s mask (no idea why it was in Tommy’s hospital room) and prepares to kill Pam, with even the iconic “Ki ki ki, ma ma ma” subtly altered to suggest Tommy will be the killer going forward.

The Summary:
Although it tries to play with the formula of the franchise, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning ends up playing things far too safe. The whole reason Jason was killed off in the first place was because of how repetitive and derivative the films were becoming, and changing the setting to a halfway house does little to alter that. Instead, the film goes out of its way to avoid featuring or expanding on the Pinehurst kids and needlessly drags out the runtime with a bunch of random kills that aren’t even fun to watch since the gore is so horrendously butchered. The potential to try something new is here but lost behind a thinly veiled attempt to remake the first film, hit all the cliché expectations of the genre, and pretend like Jason is still alive when he clearly isn’t. In another life, with a stronger script, A New Beginning would’ve taken place mostly in Pinehurst and seen the residents and staff picked off one by one, with Tommy being positioned as the killer only to reveal that it’s actually Roy. At least that would’ve made more sense than Roy targeting random civilians rather than those actually (well, partially) responsible for Joey’s death. Though, ideally, Roy would’ve been dropped entirely (or existed only as a red herring) and Tommy would’ve been positioned as the franchise’s new killer, now horribly traumatised from his experiences and driven to murder, we were sadly left with this mess of a plot. Ultimately, considering the next film basically pretends like this one didn’t happen, you’re best off skipping A New Beginning. It adds nothing to the franchise and stands out as a failed attempt to try something different mired in an insistence on repeating the same tired slasher formula.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

What did you think to Friday the 13th: A New Beginning? How do you feel it holds up against its predecessors and its many sequels? Did you guess that Roy was the killer, and if not how did you miss the blatant foreshadowing peppered throughout? Were you disappointed that Tommy didn’t become the new killer and what did you think to his characterisation? Which of the kills was your favourite? What did you think to all the wacky side characters? Which of the Friday the 13th movies is your favourite? Do you consider Friday the 13th to be unlucky? Are you watching a Friday the 13th movie today? Whatever your thoughts on Friday the 13th (the movie, franchise, and day), go ahead and leave them down below or drop a comment on my social media and be sure to check in again for more horror content in the near future!

Back Issues [Crossover Crisis]: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors

Dr. K2 Comments

In April 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) released and saw the temporary destruction of the “Multiverse”. To celebrate this momentous event, I’m discussing multiversal crossovers in an event I dubbed “Crossover Crisis”.

Published: August 2009 to December 2009
Writers: Jeff Katz and James Kuhoric
Artist: Jason Craig

The Background:
Although it is regarded as one of the best slasher properties around, Paramount Pictures became embarrassed with their Friday the 13th franchise (1980 to present) and sold (some of) the rights to rival studio New Line Cinema back in the early-2000s. This led to the long-awaited clash between Friday’s iconic killer, Jason Voorhees (Various) and New Line’s Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) after years in Development Hell. Despite mixed reviews, Freddy vs. Jason’s (Yu, 2003) box office gross of nearly $117 million made it he most profitable entry in either franchise and naturally led to talks of a sequel. Unfortunately, these fell apart due to rights issues surrounding fellow horror icon Ashley “Ash” Williams (Bruce Campbell), but the three horror heavyweights did meet up in Freddy vs. Jason vs Ash (Kuhoric, et al, 2007 to 2008) courtesy of WildStorm and Dynamite Entertainment. Based on Jeff Katz’s film treatment, Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash proved successful enough to warrant a follow-up the following year that was originally envisioned as a twelve-issue story before being scaled back. Katz returned to co-write the story, which he envisioned as a massive conclusion to the Freddy vs. Jason trilogy and a love letter to all three franchises. Fellow writer James Kuhoric was adamant about ensuring all the returning characters felt familiar to series fans, with special emphasis put on the clash of personalities between Ash and Tommy Jarvis. The two also sought to redesign Jason, giving him a Grim Reaper-like visage, and make the most of the unrestricted nature of the new format to show more over-the-top kills on a much larger scale. Although some saw The Nightmare Warriors as an improvement on the first crossover due to its larger scale, it was also criticised for being somewhat mindless and predictable and for struggling to juggle not just the titular horror icons but its extended cast of characters.

The Review:
The Nightmare Warriors opens twenty-four hours after the end of Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, with undead killer Jason Voorhees still trapped under the bumper of Ash Williams’ beloved Oldsmobile, still with a machete blade where his left hand once was, and still missing his trademark hockey mask, beneath the frigid depths of Crystal Lake. Cursed with eternal unlife by the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, Jason is compelled to return to the world of the living at the urging of his mother, Pamela, though it’s once again dream demon Freddy Kruger assuming Pamela’s form to reactivate Jason and set him against Ash for besting them in the previous crossover. At that same moment, a group of government agents, led by Director Gordon Russell, arrive to secure the area, intent on securing the Necronomicon for themselves, deeming its power to open rifts and raise demons more enticing than the unkillable Jason. Within mere panels, his team find and thaw out the book and spirit it back to base, while a separate team dives into the lake to retrieve Jason and nullify him. Unfortunately for the frogmen, Jason bursts to life and slaughters them all, shrugging off their bullets and high-powered shock lancers and dicing them to bloody pieces, then retrieves the remains of his mask and heads out to find Ash at this “mother’s” bidding. Spreading of Ash, the story jumps over the Franklin, Michigan and ahead six months; Ash’s narration once again brings us up to speed on his life: after defeating Freddy and Jason, he and surviving girl Caroline (or “Carrie”) settled down into suburbia, despite the dramatic age gap between them. Their domestic bliss is interrupted by the first of many returning faces when Doctor Maggie Burroughs (also known as Katherine Kruger, Freddy’s daughter and noted child counsellor) drops by. Since the events of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (Talalay, 1991), Maggie has been working with another prominent Elm Street character, child psychiatrist Doctor Neil Gordon, to identify special “focal magnets” for the supernatural who can combat dark forces.

Ash initially refuses Maggie’s offer to join the other survivors, as the Pentagon resurrects Freddy.

Although she’s come to the right place, given Ash is the “Chosen One”, Ash has given up his Deadite-slaying ways and has no interest in joining their crusade to pre-emptively target the dark evils of the world and Maggie leaves empty handed. Ash heads out on a beer run, blissfully ignorant to the fact that Jason is tearing into his house and attacking Carrie. Although she desperately fights back, she’s no match for Jason and her head ends up cooking on the barbecue. On the drive back, Ash catches wind of this when he gets a vision of Freddy – not unlike the visions suddenly striking Stephanie Kimble, “Dream Master” Alice Johnson, and her teenage son, Jacob – between the panels, but he arrives too late to help and is pegged as a murderer by Carrie’s family. As a mysterious individual watches on, Ash fights off Carrie’s dad and makes a run for it as the cops arrive, hopping on the first train out of there to go find Maggie. Although Maggie seems to sense her father’s return, she allays the fears of her lover, Neil, since they’re protected by the dream-blocking powers of Hypnocil. She also assures their two psychic recruits, Rennie Wickham and Tina Shepherd, that they have nothing to fear and excites them with the prospect of new recruits joining their cause. Neil, however, isn’t completely sold on Maggie’s plan, especially after seeing a similar group of survivors butchered by Freddy in the past, but Maggie convinces him with her words (and her allure) that the survivors of Freddy and Jason’s rampages are special, crucial, to stopping such monsters. Their new recruits turn out to be Alice, Jacob, Stephanie and her father, Steven Freeman (referred to as “Stephen”). Just as they arrive, Stephanie suffers a massive seizure, bombarded by visions of Jason, who adds a bunch more bodies to his kill list when he follows Ash. Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, Director Russell and his team’s hard work translating the Necronomicon with some pretty futuristic technology sees them return Freddy to the real world, now fully mortal and free of his burns. Although Freddy gives Director Russell the run-around and plays coy, he gives them enough to confirm the book’s power and Russell orders a strike team to intercept Jason, who’ve they’ve tracked to Maggie’s house.

As the group struggles to co-exist, Freddy is joined by a revitalised Jason and a sadistic Maggie!

Jason makes a dramatic entrance shortly after Ash arrives looking to avenge Carrie’s death; Stephen’s incredulity about the entire thing turns to abject terror at the sight of Jason, who unceremoniously caves his head in, but the others are saved when the mysterious onlooker, Tommy Jarvis, bursts in to spirit them away in his jeep. The strike team arrives soon after and subdues Jason with sleeping gas, bringing him into custody at last. Chastising their efforts and clashing egos with Ash, Tommy warns about Jason’s brutality and power and begs them to leave it to him given his past experience, but Maggie won’t hear of it. She touts Rennie’s empathic power and each of the group reveals some of their past experiences with both killers and their special abilities, such as Alice sporting dream-based powers and Tina being somewhat telekinetic, and Ash naturally boasting off his Deadite-slaying past. Maggie desperately calls for he and Tommy to set aside their egos and focus on using the Necronomicon to put both monsters down for good, stating that her father oversees the project to research it, but the group remains divided. At the Pentagon, Jason is wheeled into a Deadite holding cell and once again falls prey to Freddy’s influence. Somehow possessing the Necronomicon’s power along with his dream powers, Freddy brags of his plot to use Russell to finish what he started in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash. Although Jason still wants to kill Freddy, he’s convinced to join forces with Freddy mentions Tommy’s name and Freddy uses the magic words – “Klattu! Verata! Nikto!” – to restore, repair, and upgrade Jason’s body and mind, turning him into Freddy’s long-haired, dual-machete-wielding General. Later that evening, Ash and the others (sans Tommy, Stephanie, and Jacob) enter the Pentagon using Maggie’s credentials and are immediately locked up on Director Russell’s orders despite their warnings about Freddy. As Ash questions Maggie’s relationship with Russell, she’s brought to Freddy, who can freely shift between a normal human and his burned form and has physically merged with the Necronomicon, effectively making him a God. In a dramatic moment, Maggie murders Russell with Freddy’s glove and reveals that she’s been working with Freddy the whole time, the two apparently in a very sexual incestuous relationship.

As Jason leads the Deadite army, Freddy kidnaps Jacob and spreads fear and death through the nation!

Although Neil believes it to be some kind of brainwashing, Maggie goes the whole hog and kills him and Rennie, rechristening herself Kathryn Kruger and being transformed by Freddy into a claw-handed murderess. Thanks to Tina’s psychic powers, Ash and the others are alerted to the betrayal just as the Pentagon goes on high alert after Jason leads the Deadite army in a jail break. Although desperate for some payback, Ash is convinced to flee by Tina and Alice; when he tries to retrieve the Necronomicon, he’s attacked by a claw-wielding machine controlled by Freddy but a combination of Tina’s psychic powers and Ash’s bravado brings it down. Tommy is aghast to see Jason leading the medieval dead on a killing spree throughout the nation’s capital, though his attempts to stop the masked killer are for naught as he’s quickly captured by a couple of bat-like Deadites and brought to Freddy, leaving Jason and the Deadites free to carve up congress. Back at the Stabe Hotel, Jacob is seduced by Stephanie in a nightmarish ruse by Freddy, who binds and tortures him until he cries for his mother. Sensing his plight, Alice uses her powers to transport herself, Ash, and Tina into Jacob’s nightmare, but they’re unable to keep Freddy from kidnapping Jacob and challenging them to confront him at the White House. Thankfully, they’re able to put Stephanie back together in the dreamworld and save her life, though the experience of being skinned alive in the nightmare leaves her traumatised. At the White House, the Deadites hold off the military and the cops and allow Freddy to address the nation, first using the guise of President George W. Bush and then reverting to a less despicable visage, his own burnt form, to dictate his “No Kid Left Alive” policy and declare war on the children of America.

When Freddy sets Stephanie and Kathryn against his enemies, Alice passes her powers to Jacob.

Ash galvanises Alice, Tina, and Stephanie and they gear up to go rescue Jacob; they find Washington swarming with Deadites and blood raining from the skies and their resolve falters when Alice chastises Ash’s plan of simply fighting their way to victory. Luckily, the military arrive and cause a big enough distraction; their wholesale attack upon the Deadites and Freddy’s focus on repelling their forces allows Ash and the others to slip past the undead defences, but the distressed Stephanie is lost when she wanders off and has her untapped Voorhees blood awakened by Freddy’s influence, turning her into a mindless killer like her…I wanna say uncle?…that sees her don her own hockey mask and set out to fulfil her birthright and kill Jason. In the Oval Office, Freddy brags of his superiority to the captive Tommy but, annoyed by the kid’s defiance, prepares to kill him when Jason intervenes, wanting the kill for himself. This is again enough to turn the two against each other; Freddy orders Kathryn to kill Jason and the two get into it, with Kathryn cutting chunks out of Jason and even impaling him on a flagpole, but the fight is interrupted when Ash comes crashing in in a tank, crushing Kathryn and blowing Freddy clear out of the Oval Office with a cannon shot. As Ash and the others rescue Tommy and Jacob, Freddy literally pulls himself together out on the lawn where he’s confronted by Alice; when Freddy mocks her chances and boasts of his immortality, she allows herself to be killed since she has a terminal disease, but her death passes her Dream Master powers to Jacob and releases the spirits of the original Dream Warriors and Freddy’s mother, Amanda. Suitably empowered, Jacob and the Dream Warriors dispatch of Freddy’s Deadite forces, bringing Freddy to his knees in defeat once more.

Tommy and Ash set aside their differences to defeat Freddy and Jason once more.

However, as Amanda prepares to bring Freddy’s soul to be judged by the Almighty, Freddy drops the ruse and guts Jacob; Ash and Tommy clash one last time as they try to get their priorities straight and ultimately agree to let Tommy have his wish to be the one to finish Jason off. Tommy attacks Jason with all his anger and strength but is, of course, physically outmatched by the revitalised killer; drawing strength from all the pain and death Jason has caused, Tommy pummels him with a rock but falters when he sees Jason’s unblemished face. The normally silent monster utters the words “Yew… daie!” and leaves Tommy with a shoulder injury and facing certain death. Luckily, Stephanie impales Jason with two machetes to the back, distracting him long enough for Tommy to behead him with a massive shard of glass and triumphantly hold up his severed head. As Tina desperately tries to stop Jacob from bleeding out, Freddy feasts upon both the souls of the Dream Warriors and of Jason himself; Ash thrusts the Necronomicon into Neil’s hands and demands he find a passage to end the nightmare and buys him time by battling Freddy once more but all hope seems lost as Neil can’t read the book’s language. However, the spirit of his former lover, Nancy Thompson, arrives to help and, together, they speak the cursed words, opening another vortex. Although Freddy’s power is such that he can resist the portal’s pull, the Dream Demons (revealed to be dwelling within the Necronomicon) express outrage at his failures and remove his powers, leaving him vulnerable to one last quip from Ash and a shotgun to the chest, which sends him flying into the vortex. Nancy and Neil share a tearful farewell and, as the nation recovers, a victorious Ash and Tina share a completely random kiss and he parts ways with Tommy with a mutual respect. However, Jason’s body disappears from the battlefield and the story ends in Springwood, 1964, where a random cop caught in the Necronomicon’s vortex blindly signs Freddy’s arrest warrant, apparently changing Freddy’s past despite him laughing from the clouds? It’s a bit confusing, if I’m honest.

The Summary:
Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors suffers from a lot of the issues that plagued the last crossover; the story is a bit of a mess, with twists and turns that pop up seemingly at random just to drag the story out to six issues, and with some underdeveloped themes and conflicts. Like, I must have missed when the Pentagon conjured enough Deadites to need a prison for them, and I’m not sure why Director Russell thought he could manipulate Freddy so easily, plus it’s really out of character for Maggie to suddenly be so on her father’s side that she not only kills in his name but is turned on by his affections. The art is also quite inconsistent again; it picks up from issue four but there are a lot of instances where the artist is again simply copying shots from Freddy vs. Jason and I had a hard time recognising a lot of the returning characters. Stephen looks more like a scowling Marshall Mathers III/Eminem than his film counterpart, I kept mixing Stephanie, Rennie, and Alice up and I just don’t think enough was done to visually make them stand out from each other. Alice, for example, should be far older than she’s portrayed here, which would’ve helped. I genuinely forgot Jacob was even in this until he was kidnapped, and I can’t say I cared much for Tommy’s characterisation; get him being gung-ho about wanting to end Jason, but I like to think he would see the benefits of joining forces with the so-called “Nightmare Warriors”. I did enjoy seeing him clash with Ash; I genuinely think the story might’ve been stronger with more focus on those two being an odd couple pairing and placing more emphasis on the Ash/Tina relationship since she randomly kisses him at the end despite there being no chemistry between them prior to that.

The interactions between Ash and the returning characters is the best part of this bloated crossover.

Ash is a little different here than in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, at least initially. He’s settled down with Carrie and is happy to leave his past behind, but he’s brought back into the fight when she’s killed by Jason. Unlike the opening of the last crossover, I enjoyed this death since Carrie lasted a little longer and her death pushed Ash into joining up with Maggie and gave him a greater personal stake in the battle against Freddy and Jason. It’s not one that’s fully realised since Ash tangles more with Freddy, which I get as it’s fun seeing them trade insults as well as blows, but he doesn’t really fight with Jason all that much and, unlike the last crossover, there’s no three-way dance between them this time. Ash is also a little more contentious this time around; he clashes with Tommy, of course, but also aggravates Alice with his misogynistic attitude and inability to think of a plan beyond just ploughing through what’s in front of him. The Deadites get a little more play this time around, with Jason leading the medieval dead and them chattering away as they’re killing and being killed, but they primarily exist to be cannon fodder for the military, Ash, and the Nightmare Warriors. Speaking of whom, I did enjoy seeing these surviving characters return, even if they’re not as strong or visually interesting as the Dram Warriors. The only really useful one was Tina, and even she just blasted doors open and levitated stuff; Alice only became useful by dying and even then Jacob was attacked before he could finish offing the Deadites, meaning the returning characters were more like fan service than anything else.

More gore, more fan service, and more action doesn’t necessarily amount to a better story.

I don’t mind this; a story titled Freddy vs Jason vs. Ash should be heavy on the fan service, after all, but it does mean this story is even more bogged down with exposition than the last one as we need a recap on what everyone’s been up to since their last appearances. As before, Jason trumps Freddy in terms of kills; he hacks, bludgeons, and slaughters too many people to count here and it’s just as gruesome and glorious as you could ask for, but he is also once again relegated to being Freddy’s minion. At least this time he gets a visual upgrade and even speaks, but he doesn’t seem any more intelligent and the plot point of Stephanie “becoming a Voorhees” amounts to a mere distraction. Although the story makes a dramatic show of Jason’s beheading, we know he isn’t really dead as “only a Voorhees” can truly kill him and, as Pamela states, he can “never die”. Freddy is basically the same as in the last story, being a master manipulator but sporting incredible (and ill-defied) dark powers thanks to the Necronomicon. Having absorbed the book into himself, he can freely manipulate the waking world as he does the dream world but does little with this except send Jason and the Deadites on a killing spree, bring his enemies to him to absorb their souls and power, and mock his foes rather than just kill them. Seeing him take on Bush’s guise and revel in his Godhood was fun, and the story is far more creative with his powers and his dialogue, and I really liked seeing him reduced to a snivelling wretch after being stripped of his power. However, I still don’t really get the ending and I think The Nightmare Warriors confused itself by trying to be bigger and more grandiose than any other film in the franchises. Ultimately, it’s more enjoyable than the last crossover due to the fan service, cameos, and increased gore and action, but still falls short of being anything other than a novelty read for fans of these three horror staples.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors? How do you think it compares to the last crossover between these three? What did you think to the returning characters and the fates that befell them? Did you like seeing Jason get an upgrade and Freddy become all-powerful? What was your interpretation of the ending? Which film in the three franchises is your favourite? What other horror crossovers would you like to see? Drop a comment below or on my social media to share your thoughts and feel free to check out my other reviews of both franchises, and the rest of my Crossover Crisis content!

Back Issues [Crossover Crisis]: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash

Dr. K2 Comments

In April 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) released and saw the temporary destruction of the “Multiverse”. To celebrate this momentous event, I’m discussing multiversal crossovers all throughout April in an event I dubbed “Crossover Crisis”.

Published: November 2007 to March 2008
Writers: James Kuhoric and Jeff Katz
Artist: Jason Craig

The Background:
Despite being regarded as one of the best slasher franchises, Paramount Pictures became embarrassed with their association with the Friday the 13th films (Various, 1980 to present) and eventually sold (some of) the rights to rival studio New Line Cinema. This meant that the long-awaited showdown between Friday’s iconic killer, Jason Voorhees (Various), and New Line’s Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) could finally emerge from years of Development Hell. Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003) received mixed reviews but its nearly $117 million box office gross made it the most profitable entry in either franchise and talks of a sequel inevitably came up. Unfortunately, no follow-up emerged on the silver screen, primarily because the main idea involved including horror icon Ashley “Ash” Williams (Bruce Campbell) and no deal could be reached. We did, however, see these three horror heavyweights tangle in not one but two limited edition comic books published by WildStorm and Dynamite Entertainment, who had been regularly publishing Ash’s comic book adventures for some time. Based on Jeff Katz’s film treatment, Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash was praised for its covers and artwork and for its incorporation and expansion of all three franchises, though it was criticised for being somewhat predictable. Nevertheless, as alluded to, it was followed up by another clash between the three some two years later, one that sought to weave in even more lore from the franchises but was also met with somewhat mixed reviews.

The Review:
Our story begins five years after the events of Freddy vs. Jason and is narrated by the loquacious wit of Deadite-slaying, S-Mart employee Ash Williams, who not only relates that Crystal Lake has once again reverted back to its “Forest Green” moniker but is also now home to “Super Mega Ultra S-Mart”. Ash recaps what happened in the movie (unstoppable, undead killer Jason Voorhees was resurrected by dream demon Freddy Kruger and the two battled to the death at Camp Crystal Lake when Jason’s murderous ways defied Freddy’s wishes), and then reintroduces us to the two survivors of that epic showdown, Will Rollins and Lori Campbell (referred to as “Laurie”, for some reason), who have inexplicably returned to Forest Green because Laurie can’t shake the feeling that Freddy and Jason are still alive. Of course, basic horror movie odds state that this is a bad idea; both Will and Ash point out that it’s a bad idea, but Laurie won’t be dissuaded and, with snow caking the landscape, they investigate the remains of Camp Crystal Lake. Naturally, Laurie finds blood at the site and, moments later, is horrified to see Will’s eviscerated corpse strung up from the rafters, his entrails spilling to the floor. Hysterical and panicked, Laurie desperately tries to channel her survivor’s instinct, the special qualities that Ash bitterly remarks make such individuals special, attacking Jason with a buzzsaw and chastising his mindless killing, only to end up with a machete to the face as Ash sadly comments that, for better or for worse, the only true “chosen one” is him. Jason takes his newest victims back to his shack, where his beloved mother’s severed head has been joined by Freddy’s, a memento of his victory in Freddy vs. Jason. As we saw at the end of the film, Freddy’s spirit survived and, once Jason enters the shack, he’s immediately forced into a lucid dream state where he relives his childhood torment. He’s enraged when he finds Freddy nailing his mother, but Pamela soothes him, as ever, and convinces Jason that his new “daddy” not only wants to protect him from bullies but can also make him a “normal little boy” like he’s always wanted; all Jason has to do is go back to his childhood home and dig up the Necronomicon Ex Mortis that’s buried there.

With our survivors unceremoniously offed, a similar plot begins that sees Ash thrown into the mix.

With our returning characters summarily killed off, the story jumps over to the Forest Green S-Mart to introduce a new batch of horny, cliché teens; four slackers more interested in making crude dick jokes, pulling pranks on their supervisor, and giving oddball customers the brushoff. The four – Jarvis, Raoul, Davey, and Caroline (or “Carrie”) – are unimpressed to learn that a “senior housewares domestic engineer” is coming in to whip them, and the entire store, into shape for the holiday season. Of course, this is the “Chosen One” himself, Ash Williams, still sporting his robotic hand and embittered by both the influence the Necronomicon has over his life and the losses he’s suffered because of it. Still, he finds solace in kicking Deadite ass whenever they show up and the hope that he’ll one day get to destroy the book once and for all. Ash immediately puts the moves on some teens hanging around outside the S-Mart; as he’s reprimanded for his tardiness and shown around by the manager, the teens wander into the path of the lurking Jason, his vision twisted by Freddy’s influence and driving him into a killing frenzy. The screams attract Ash, and the cops, who immediately target Ash for being an out-of-towner but are forced to release him when the manager vouches for his innocence. Despite the event, Ash gets to work, unimpressed by the store’s presentation and the kids’ lethargic attitude and naivety regarding the dark forces lurking in the shadows. Naturally, Raoul and Jarvis mock his doomsaying demeanour, but Carrie is intrigued by his stories of cursed books and demons; just as he shares more of his experiences, she also clues him in on the local legend of Jason Voorhees, unaware that Jarvis and Raoul are listening in. When Raoul jumps in wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a tomato sauce-splattered hockey stick, Ash nearly kills him before Jarvis intervenes, further increasing the animosity between them and the unimpressed Ash. His mood lifts, however, when he not only sees the S-Mart sells the impressive “Chain Lightning” chainsaw but also when sultry Bree strokes his ego, convincing him to buy supplies for her camping trip, only to ditch him once he’s finished loading up her fancy sports car.

Ash searches for the Necronomicon, unaware that Freddy and Jason are also hunting it.

Meanwhile, Freddy urges Jason to continue towards his goal but the hulking killer can’t help but slaughter a group of carollers he spots in the forest along the way. Wouldn’t you know it, though, Bree and her shit-kicking friends are spending the night in the old Voorhees mansion, unaware that Jason is prowling outside. Ash rolls up soon after on the trail of the Necronomicon and immediately heads to the fruit cellar, ignoring the commotion upstairs as he assumes it’s just the kids getting laid (though it’s actually Jason ripping them to bloody pieces), and finally locating the book just before realising there’s a madman on the loose inside. Ash races upstairs and finds Bree, half naked and in shock, and uncomfortably slaps a kiss on her before delaying Jason with a shotgun blast and making a run for his Oldsmobile. With Bree in hysterics and the car refusing the start, Ash deflects Jason’s machete with his robot hand and is forced to bail when the monster wrecks his beloved car. Thankfully, Carrie suddenly runs Jason down as he’s throttling our hero and all three of them get to safety, much to Freddy’s anger. In Jason’s subconscious, where the hulking killer is little more than a terrified child, Freddy reiterates his mission to retrieve the book and gives Jason license to kill anyone who gets in his way, learning Ash’s name from the depths of Jason’s admittedly empty mind. Ash, Bree, and Carrie head to S-Mart, where Raoul and Jarvis are getting high, and Ash again chews the kids out for being macho assclowns. As Ash desperately searches for a solution in the pages of the Necronomicon, Jason waltzes through the front door and goes on a delightfully gory killing spree, forcing Ash to reload and rearm himself with his trademark chainsaw.

With Freddy’s threat now apparent, Ash comes up with a plan to destroy both undead killers.

Round two between Jason and Ash goes slightly more in Jason’s favour, with Ash being comically battered around the shop, incapacitating him enough for Jason to tear out Bree’s throat and retrieve the book. While the survivors regroup, now convinced of Jason’s threat and Ash’s abilities, Jason brings the book back to his shack and Freddy reads those immortal words – “Klaatu! Verata! Nikto!” – and returns to the waking world once more. Ready to spread a new kind of nightmare with the book’s power, Freddy leaves, considering the two even, but surprisingly makes good on his promise to “fix” Jason. Ash and the others head to Carrie’s place where they take stock of the situation, with Ash even referring to Jason as a Deadite and the group agreeing that “someone” must be manipulating him; but, with little else to go on, they turn in for the night. Thus, Ash finds himself dreaming of being back in the cabin; he even has his old hand for all of five panels before Freddy’s claws burst from it. As before, he races to the work shed and severs the razor-fingered limb with a chainsaw and wry commentary, only to be stunned when his blood forms into tiny, mocking Freddys and then a full-size Freddy, who introduces himself to Ash and then, strangely, states his plan to have Ash and the kids bring him the Necronomicon despite the fact that he already has it. Regardless, Ash fights Freddy off and forces himself awake, discovering that whatever happens in a dream happens in the real world, which is bad news for Davey as he’s pummelled to death by dodgeballs in his nightmare. Relishing his returning strength, Freddy orders Jason (now little more than his obedient lackey) to go kill them so he (as in Freddy) can properly read the book, while Ash has the kids round up some supplies from the S-Mart before heading back to the Voorhees estate. Ash’s plan is for them to stay awake, lure out Jason, and bury him under his own house using explosives; he arms himself with Chain Lightning, steals “some sugar” from Carrie, and heads inside, leaving the others to carry out their part of the plan.

Although supposedly smarter, Jason chooses to defy Freddy, who’s obsessed with the Necronomicon.

Unfortunately for the dumbstruck Raoul and Jarvis, Jason is a bit smarter now and doesn’t fall for their trap; he even taunts them with a finger wag before advancing on them. In the house, Ash is surprised to find Freddy manifested in the real world, suffering a shoulder wound for his arrogance, and even more stunned to find Freddy has already read from the book and enacted his plan to dominate both the waking and the dream worlds. Transforming to his demonic form and conjuring both ethereal Dream Demon spirits and miniature claws, Freddy prepares to cut Ash down but is surprisingly – and bafflingly – interrupted by Jason, now wielding two machetes, who randomly decides to turn against Freddy for no reason. Still, Freddy’s more than willing to oblige and conjures the demonic corpses of Jason’s many victims to swarm the hockey masked killer, with many familiar faces (even some who weren’t Jason’s prey) making a welcome return. Despite their numbers, and Freddy running him through with his own machete, Jason refuses to go down without a fight, but Freddy’s attention is soon turned to Ash when he finds the “Chosen One” has swiped the book during the commotion and made a run for it. In the forest, Ash is attacked by demonic trees and crows but quickly asserts himself with his chainsaw and shotgun, stumbling upon the bludgeoned remains of Raoul and Davey soon after. He’s relieved to find Carrie survived, however, but they’re forced to take shelter in the Voorhees house when the enraged Dream Demon looms over them from the clouds in an awesome visual. Ash frantically searches through the Necronomicon for the passage that will banish Freddy and Jason to the Deadite realm and discovers sketches of the two in the book’s pages, lending more credence to the “Jason is a Deadite” philosophy and only exacerbating Ash’s anger towards the book and all the suffering it’s caused. Ash entrusts the book, and the scared words, to Carrie and prepares to hold the two killers off, only to wind up tangling with Freddy’s nursery rhyme kids and watching, helplessly, as Carrie is taken away by Freddy in a recreation of the end of the original Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984).

After a long and bloody battle, Freddy and Jason are seemingly defeated once more…

Of course, Ash easily fights these apparitions off but, more surprisingly, Carrie is inadvertently saved from Freddy’s leering lusts by Jason. While he’s no match for Freddy’s God-like power, Jason is still switched on enough to snatch the book from Carrie before she can read the magic words, forcing Ash to blow his hockey mask (and half his rotten face) off to protect her. Ash then literally disarms Jason to retrieve the book, but Jason simply jams his machete blade into the stump and swats Ash out of the house, through a window and into unconsciousness, as the estate collapses on him and Freddy, leaving Carrie to run for her life when the demonic Freddy bursts forth demanding his book. After savouring the chase, Freddy gleefully mocks her by cutting himself in a perversion of the Holy Communion and reclaims the book, only for Jason to suddenly return and, despite Freddy’s taunts and impressive light show, splits his head in two with his machete. Naturally, Freddy quickly recovers, freezes Jason with a puff of bloody air, and prepares to use the Necronomicon to send him far away. Just then, Ash comes barrelling in in his bizarrely repaired Oldsmobile and runs Freddy down before beating the piss out of him and blowing his nuts off with his shotgun. Ash’s bravado is nullified when a recovered Jason enters the fray and causes Ash to slip into the icy waters of the frozen Crystal Lake. Freddy duplicates himself to momentarily overwhelm Jason and their fight is interrupted (…again…) by Ash, who breaks free from the ice and blows a hole in Jason’s chest and takes a swipe at Freddy with his chainsaw, only to be quickly overpowered and manhandled by their supernatural strength and powers. Luckily, Carrie finally gets her shit together and reads the passages, opening a vortex that sucks Freddy into the Deadite realm. Although Jason manages to resist the vacuum, he’s forced back to the depths of Crystal Lake by Ash’s Oldsmobile but, regardless, the threat is summarily ended. However, while he revels in this victory, Ash expresses scepticism that the two – and the Evil Dead – can ever truly by defeated and, indeed, the final panels not only show that Jason is alive in the frozen Crystal Lake but that the Necronomicon also foreshadows a future confrontation between the three!

The Summary:
Oh my, is this story quite the glorious mess! First of all, I have to say, while the covers are indeed striking, the interior artwork widely fluctuates between issues and is often almost incomprehensible. Although Will and Lori barely resemble their film counterparts, Ash, Freddy, and Jason are all rendered exactly as they appear in their films, almost to a fault as Jason Craig blatantly copies poses and images from Freddy vs. Jason in some panels. Sometimes, characters are depicted in a quirky, exaggerated manner almost on the verge of caricature; others, they’re a mass of angles and colours and blobs and things appear very rushed. You can guess which style works best for the story. Second, there’s the writing; Ash’s narration is a nice touch and is a unique way to fill in any blanks and to convey his overriding character arc of being this cursed “Chosen One”, but the narrative is kinda all over the place at times. Will and “Laurie” return only to be killed off right away, the new characters are dull and simply there to add to the body count, and a lot of the writing annoyingly pokes fun at the tropes of the Friday the 13th franchise rather than embracing them. I can’t help but feel the story might’ve been better served by having Will and Lori survive; maybe they also work at the S-Mart and they could’ve delivered some of the exposition, and died due to the power boost Freddy and Jason receive here. Instead, we’re left with a couple of jock dickheads and some slutty girls who mock Ash at first and then fall for his charms as soon as the bodies start piling up.

Ash’s bravado sees him underestimate his foes, and their connection to the Necronomicon.

Speaking of which, Ash is depicted quite fittingly here; he’s both bitter and tortured and snarky and proactive, openly telling his horror stories to anyone who’ll listen even when there’s no context or reason for him to and immediately jumping into action whenever a threat emerges. He’s never short of a quip or biting remark and bombards both his undead enemies and his smarmy teenage cohorts with snappy insults whenever he can; he also makes sure to spout all his familiar catchphrases, often when slicing and dicing, and comes up with a decent enough plan to get rid of the two monsters, even if he does underestimate their abilities. Yet, he’s also a complete moron; he easily falls for Bree’s deception, arrogantly assumes he can best Freddy and Jason since he’s killed Deadites before, and is easily distracted by whichever shapely piece of ass is in his view at that moment. The best parts of the story are when he’s matching wits with Freddy, with the two trading more barbs than blows, and going toe to toe with Jason, with Ash’s unique abilities giving him just enough edge to at least hold his own against Jason’s superior strength. Similar to Freddy vs. Jason, Freddy is more of a manipulative presence here; weakened, he must manipulate Jason once again, often using the form of his beloved mother, to restore his power and, consequently, claims only one victim in the entire story. Yet, his threat is constantly emphasised; the Necronomicon promises to increase his power a thousandfold and enables him to bring his dream powers to the real world, and nowhere is this more apparent than in him assuming his demonic visage about halfway through the story. Unfortunately, only the reader is truly aware of Freddy’s threat for the majority of the book; characters are naturally only aware of Jason since he’s a local legend, though this doesn’t diminish Freddy’s importance since he constantly pops up to chastise Jason or make lewd advances towards the characters before enacting his diabolical plan.

Despite some gruesome kills and seeing the three go at it, the story is lacking in key areas.

Of the three, Jason kinda gets a little shafted. Sure, he builds up an impressive kill count here and delivers the story’s most gruesome moments (his wholesale slaughter of the S-Mart customers and employees is a notable highlight), but I didn’t like that he was reduced to Freddy’s pawn once he delivered the Necronomicon. Freddy supposedly reenergised Jason’s brain cells with the book, but we see little evidence of this; sure, he’s a bit smarter and seems a little more aware of what’s happening, but it’s not enough for me to say he’s never shown that level of intelligence before. It’s also incredibly baffling to me that Jason just randomly turns on Freddy; there’s no explanation for this and it just comes across as a bit forced and a way to avoid coming up with a good reason to have them fight again. The fights between the two, and three, characters are pretty good; they’re surprisingly evenly matched despite Jason’s supernatural strength and Freddy’s increased powers and their battles are generally interrupted by characters waking up or interjecting themselves, but there was some meaty, bloody action whenever they got into it. Sadly, I’m not sure it’s enough to really elevate this story; it’s a fun glimpse at what could’ve been in a potential Freddy vs. Jason sequel, but I definitely think another pass was needed at the script and a few of the issues needed addressing. Primarily that the story really is just a retread of Freddy vs. Jason but with elements from the original Evil Dead films (Raimi, 1981 to 1992) thrown in, but also…Freddy has the Necronomicon so why does he need Ash the others to get it? Why does the story flip-flop between calling it Forest Green and Crystal Lake? How did Ash know the Necronomicon was at the Voorhees house? Still, I liked the visual of Crystal Lake covered in snow, the callbacks and references to each film and certain events from each franchise, and the visual of the three going at it, I just think it needed a little bit more to really elevate it to must-read territory.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash? What did you think to the artwork and the characterisations? Were you disappointed that Will and Lori were offed so quickly? Did you like the connection between the Necronomicon and Jason’s origin? Would you have liked to see these three horror icons tangle on the big screen? Which film in the three franchises is your favourite? What other horror crossovers would you like to see? Drop a comment below or on my social media to share your thoughts and feel free to check out my other reviews of both franchises, and the rest of my Crossover Crisis content!

Movie Night [Crossover Crisis]: Freddy vs. Jason

Dr. K5 Comments

In April 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) released and saw the temporary destruction of the “Multiverse”. To celebrate this momentous event, I’m discussing multiversal crossovers all throughout April in an event I dubbed “Crossover Crisis”.

Released: 15 August 2003
Director: Ronny Yu
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Budget: $30 million
Stars: Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena, Jason Ritter, Kelly Rowland, Chris Marquette, and Katharine Isabelle

The Plot:
Trapped in Hell and forgotten by the townsfolk of Elm Street, dream demon Freddy Krueger (Englund) resurrects the hulking, immortal killer Jason Voorhees (Kirzinger) to spread fear amongst Elm Street’s youngsters. However, Jason is not so easily controlled and the two supernatural mass murderers come into conflict, with a group of clueless teenagers caught in the middle!

The Background:
Hot on the heels of the forefather of the “slasher” genre, John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) proved to be an unexpected box office success despite its negative reviews. What followed was a slew of sequels, of varying critical and commercial success, and one of the best slasher franchises of all horror. However, Paramount executives became embarrassed with the films and eventually sold (some of) the rights to rival film company New Line Cinema, meaning the long-term hopes of seeing Friday’s iconic killer, Jason Voorhees (Various) go toe-to-toe with New Line’s Freddy Krueger could finally be realised. Production of such a crossover had been stuck in Development Hell for the better part of ten years; attempts to get the film off the ground stalled in 1988 and numerous proposals were submitted over the years before writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, with input from David S. Goyer, finally drafted a filmable concept. Horror alum Ronnie Yu was hired to direct, despite his unfamiliarity with either franchise; although Freddy actor Robert Englund signed on, long-time Jason actor Kane Hodder was recast in order to fit Yu’s vision for the silent killer and former Pamela Voorhees actress Betsy Palmer refused to cameo due to salary disputes. Special make-up effects designer Bill Terezakis designed a new demonic visage for Freddy, while a mixture of practical and digital effects were employed to bring to life Freddy’s nightmare environments and the bloody brawl between the two killers, though the heavier use of CGI drew some criticism. Reviews were generally split down the middle (no pun intended); some enjoyed the mindless smackdown and gory violence, while others criticised the brainless plot and uninspired performances. Still, with a box off gross of nearly $117 million, Freddy vs. Jason became the most profitable entry in either franchise, though plans for a sequel pitting horror icon Ashley “Ash” Williams (Bruce Campbell) against the two never came to pass except in comic books and the decision was made to reboot both franchises rather than bring them together again on film.

The Review:
It’s hard even for me to believe, but there was a time when I couldn’t stand horror movies; I was terrified of them and regularly left the room or hid behind a comic whenever we watched them as kids, and, even now, one of the scariest movies for me was A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984). By 2003, I was still a reluctant horror fan but I distinctly remember Freddy vs. Jason helping to finally break through that mental block because of the sheer spectacle of seeing these two horror icons go at it. The premise is simplicity in itself (Freddy raises Jason from the grave to help inspire fear and return him to power) so you wouldn’t think that there would be much need for exposition but, oddly, you’d be wrong. Not only does the movie open with a demonic Freddy, trapped in Hell, directly addressing the audience, and talking us through a montage of his greatest hits and misses, there are at least two other points where the movie grinds to a halt so Freddy can repeat the plot to the audience. At one point, he randomly spits out his motivation to a victim, which would be fine if Mark Davis (Brendan Fletcher) shared this knowledge with his friends and they used it to aid with their later plan, but Freddy kills him moments later, making these constant reminders of the dead simple plot stand out like a sore thumb.

Wide-eyed Lori faces some shocking truths about her past when Freddy tries to regain his power.

Freddy vs. Jason sits in an awkward place within both franchise’s canon; the last time we saw Springwood, it was a traumatised town where no children lived thanks to Freddy’s escapades, and the last time we saw Jason he was being dragged to Hell by demons and Freddy himself. Now, Springwood is once again a prosperous suburb full of foolish and horny twenty-somethings teenagers; main character and “Final Girl” Lori Campbell (Keena) even lives in Nancy Thompson’s (Heather Langenkamp) house, which has since become closely associated with Freddy, though neither she nor her friends – borderline alcoholic tomboy Gibb Smith (Isabelle) and shallow, conceited Kia Waterson (Rowland) – and fellow teens know of Freddy. Thanks to a town-wide mandate and widespread use of the once-controversial dream-suppressant “Hypnocil”, Freddy has been effectively stamped out across Springwood; all records of him have been censored and the adults take his threat so seriously that they don’t dare to speak his name aloud, causing much confusion for Kia and the others when Gibb’s arrogant and demanding boyfriend Trey Cooper (Jesse Hutch) is brutalised in bed. Throughout the film, Lori learns that she has a closer connection to Freddy than she first thought; her mother was slaughtered by the Dream Demon years ago, her father, Doctor Campbell (Tom Butler), not only covered up the death but has been administering Hypnocil to Freddy’s victims at the nearby Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, and her childhood sweetheart Will Rollins (Ritter) was locked up after witnessing the murder, for which he was also made a patsy. Thus, the events of the film are doubly traumatic for Lori, who’s forced to realise everything she’s been told about her mother was a lie and that her father isn’t the man she thinks he is, to say nothing of her being eyed as Freddy’s latest target simply for living in the house of his former nemesis.

Unfortunately, most of the cast is pretty forgettable and painfully one-dimensonal.

Unlike the purehearted, virginial Lori, Kia is an outspoken and promiscuous young woman who is eager to push Lori out of the rut she’s been in since her mother’s death, party down and meet a guy instead of hiding herself away. Oddly concerned with her looks and never far from a harsh word, Kia’s bullish ways are quickly called out by perennial loser Charlie Linderman (Marquette), a shy and awkward high schooler who has a crush on Lori but inexplicably ends up earning Kia’s affections when he stands up to her. Despite Trey being a complete asshole, Gibb is rattled by his death, especially after finding him literally folded in half in bed, and turns to alcohol for solace; unfortunately, this makes her easy prey for Freddy, who toys with her in the dream world and ends up enraged when Jason beats him to his prey, effectively setting the stage for their inevitable clash. Rounding out the group is Jason Mewes knock off Bill Freeburg (Kyle Labine), a carefree stoner who joins the group after Jason cuts his way through a late-night rave and exists largely to offer some pretty genuine comic relief. This “Scooby Gang” of main characters is aided by Deputy Scott Stubbs (Lochlyn Munro), a newcomer to Springwood who’s also clueless about Freddy and whose claims that they’re dealing with a Jason copycat go unheeded by his superior, Sheriff Williams (Garry Chalk), to avoid unnecessary fear and panic. While Stubbs helps the kids break into Westin Hills to discover the horrifying fate of the kids who wouldn’t stop dreaming, and pick up more Hypnocil, he’s ultimately there to add to Jason’s body count and not much else.

Skeptical Will soon becomes a believer but puts in a questionable performance.

Far more significant to the plot are the aforementioned Will and his best friend Mark, two former Elm Street kids locked up in Westin Hills as patsys for Freddy’s kills. Regularly dosed up on Hypnocil and driven stir crazy by the unstable inmates, the two escape the high security with a ridiculous amount of ease after Will sees the news report of Trey’s death and rushes to check on his former flame. Although both are overjoyed to finally be reunited, Will’s time in the hospital has left him an eccentric, anxiety-ridden ball of impulsiveness; Ritter plays the role with a bizarre flair that sees him smirking even when faced with the two killers and whatever he was going for ultimately fails due to him lacking onscreen charisma. Unlike Mark, Will is completely sold on the story drip-fed by the hospital; he believes Lori’s father killed her mother and has no time for Mark’s tall tales of a Dream Demon. Mark, however, knows all-too-well that Freddy is real since his older brother, Bobby (Zack Ward), regularly spoke of him and his nightmares and was so terrified of both that he was driven to suicide. For much of the early going, Mark openly rants about Freddy, only to inadvertently cause more fear and panic that gives Freddy the strength to cut him up and burn an ominous message into him. Having witnessed this first-hand, Will instantly becomes convinced and works with the group to figure a way out of their predicament; however, his primary concern is protecting Lori, even in the face of supernatural killers, which leaves him bloody and injured and all their friends dead when Lori insists on making Freddy pay for all the pain he’s caused them.

Despite raking up an impressive kill count, Jason’s tragic past casts him as the lesser of two evils.

Of course, all these characters can be as forgettable and one-dimensional as necessary since no one is watching Freddy vs. Jason for anything other than the two killers, and none of these kids is as compelling a main protagonist as Jason! Thanks to his traumatic backstory and the abuse he suffered as a boy (Spencer Stump), Jason is positioned as the lesser of two evils; a rage-filled engine of destruction, he’s portrayed as a “big stupid dog who won’t stop eating” who is easily placated by the voice and appearance of his beloved mother, Pamela (Paula Shaw), and returning to the familiar hunting grounds of Camp Crystal Lake. At the start of the film, Jason is dead and buried and trapped in a never-ending cycle of violence in the darkest corners of his mind, but Freddy assumes Pamela’s form and gives Jason the motivation to regenerate and return to unlife to wreak havoc on Elm Street. However, as polite as it is of Jason to simply walk into Lori’s house and murder one victim before mindfully closing the door on his way out, Jason is more efficient and ruthless than Freddy expected. He builds up a hell of a kill count here, slicing and dicing anyone who gets in his way and pissing Freddy off since all the victims and fear Jason is stirring up are denied him. Thus, Freddy possesses Freeburg and renders Jason unconscious so he can put him down in the dream world; however, even though Freddy is functionally unstoppable in this realm, Jason remains cursed with immortality, forcing Freddy to probe his mind for an edge. This gives us the deepest glimpse into Jason’s fractured psyche than we’ve ever seen before; his thoughts dwell on Crystal Lake and the victims he’s claimed, and on his childhood, where he was left to drown in the lake. This is all the information Freddy needs to torment Jason, preying upon his hitherto-unknown fear of water to almost do the killer in before the teens intervene, setting the stage of their final showdown in the real world.

Freddy’s vicious, spiteful nature perfectly positions him as the clear antagonist.

Thus, Freddy is positioned clearly as the antagonist of the film. Jason may indeed get the blood, being responsible for every kill in the movie save for a couple perpetrated by Freddy, but it’s Freddy who is pulling the strings and targeting his victims with a spiteful purpose. Frustrated at being forgotten, Freddy finds himself powerless and unable to influence the real world; even when Jason’s actions spread fear of Freddy, the Dream Demon struggles to attack his victims in their dreams, but effectively regains much of his lost power simply through the teens’ fear of the unknown. This allows him to go through some of his greatest hits, such as drawing kids into his boiler room, leering through walls, and assuming a variety of outlandish forms to possess and torment his victims. Freddy’s power in the dream world is absolute, allowing him to easily regrow limbs and toy with Jason, who is confused and outmatched by Freddy’s dream powers, but even Freddy can’t kill Jason there and his influence on the real world is severely limited. Given that Jason is a mindless mute, Freddy taunts him and his other victims at every turn, mugging for the camera far too much for my tastes his overall presentation is much more in-line with his earliest incarnations, returning him to his darker and scarier roots but still allowing him to drop “bitch” lines and one-liners to terrify his victims. He is also more malicious; Jason may kill indiscriminately, but only Freddy would torment a terrified mongoloid boy by parading his mother’s severed head on a stick! Freddy also has an all-new form when in Hell or enraged; this is a far more demonic appearance that really emphasises how frustrated and angered he is at being forgotten, but all the scary forms and fancy dream powers in the world can’t help him when he’s forced into the real world and to go toe-to-toe with Jason to put the hulking killer down for good.

The Nitty-Gritty:
There’s a strange disparity at work in Freddy vs. Jason; the two franchise’s iconic themes are only heard once in the opening scene, replaced with an admittedly kick-ass metal soundtrack and soundalike score, and while Freddy gets a montage of clips from his previous films, Jason has to settle for recreating his modus operandi in a dream sequence. Still, to its credit, the film does make the effort of placing Jason on Elm Street and bringing Freddy to Camp Crystal Lake…it’s just a shame that the shot on Jason on the street doesn’t linger long enough and that the script ludicrously places Camp Crystal Lake within driving distance of Springwood despite them obviously being miles apart. Long-time Jason fans may also be baffled by his sudden fear of water; there’s a clear attempt here to associate Freddy with red and fire and Jason with blue and water, a thematic parallel that actually think works pretty well. Yes, neither has shown fear of either element before (Jason is constantly seen wading through or existing underwater, even in this film), but I think it gets a pass as we’re clearly seeing Freddy extract Jason’s deepest, darkest fear in a heightened, nightmare environment and turn it against him. Ultimately, though, neither element plays a big role in their destruction, rendering it an interesting concept that’s sadly not explored too deeply, probably because it might detract from Freddy screaming the plot at the audience!

Despite some awful CGI, many of the gory effects are enjoyable thanks to some fun brutality.

Sadly, these are the things we must suffer through to get to the good stuff in Freddy vs. Jason. For every scene showing Englund out of the make-up, grinning as he sticks pictures of his victims to a scrapbook with his own saliva, we have shit like the God-awful “Freddypillar”, a bong-smoking, worm-like monstrosity that looked terrible back then and looks even worse today. Thankfully, shoddy CGI isn’t a commonplace in Freddy vs. Jason and much of the effects are achieved practically, though they’re no less comical; after Blake (David Kopp) is spooked by Freddy, he’s horrified when his father’s (Brent Chapman) head pops off his shoulders courtesy of Jason, and he then attempts to shield himself from the same fate using his father’s severed head! There are also some odd moments of slowdown and blurry, shaky cam during the otherwise impressive rave scene and, as mentioned, some atrocious performances not just by Ritter and Keena, but even veteran actors Garry Chalk and Tom Butler seem to be hamming it up, though this doesn’t detract from how creepy that little eyeless girl (Joelle Antonissen) is or the comatose patients whisper to Freeburg. Indeed, it’s worth braving the film’s more frustrating elements and forgettable characters to get to the nightmare sequences and the kills. Freddy vs. Jason doesn’t try anything particularly ground-breaking with its nightmare scenes, preferring to largely return the horror to Freddy’s character outside of him comically bouncing Jason around like a pinball, but it certainly brings its A-game when it comes to gore. Things get off to a strong start when Jason bludgeons Trey with his trademark machete (which Jason not only carries on him at all times but almost constantly has in his hand, even when opening doors!) before folding him in two with the bed, and things only escalate from there. Jason gate-crashes a rave in a cornfield, snapping one dude’s neck in the blink of an eye and then splashing arterial spray even when set on fire in easily one of the best sequences of the movie. While Stubbs is simply electrocuted to death, poor Freeburg gets sliced clean in two, Kia gets swatted aside like she was nothing after giving Freddy some lip, and even Linderman goes out a hero as he downplays the seriousness of his injury before promptly bleeding to death.

Although their throwdown seems to end ambiguously, Jason was clearly the winner!

Indeed, the raw brutality of Freddy vs. Jason is almost as entertaining as seeing these two icons finally share the screen; there’s blood squibs and spray abound here, especially once Lori uses herself as bait to force Freddy into the real world and he goes one-on-one with Jason. Despite not having any of his supernatural powers in the real world, Freddy still puts up a hell of a fight, utilising speed and his wiles to dodge Jason’s wild swings. As fun as it was to see the two tangle in the dream world, the finale is really where all that nonsense really pays off; it’s a lot of fun seeing the two trade blows, Freddy take advantage of the various tools and toys at the construction site, and Jason grow more and more frustrated at his rival’s tenacity. Thanks to having mocked him with his mother’s form and forced him to relive his childhood trauma, Freddy faces a suitably enraged Jason; however, Freddy’s brains allow him to stay out of reach, rain pipes onto Jason, and even relieve him of his machete after slicing off his fingers. Momentarily helpless, Jason is mashed up by Freddy’s two-pronged assault and even ends up having his eyes gouged out by Freddy’s trademark glove, but Jason’s relentlessness sees him endure this assault, plunge his hand through Freddy’s torso, and even rip Freddy’s arm off before both are blown into the lake by Lori and Will. Freddy comes back, armless and half dead, ready to make Lori pay only to wind up impaled through the back by his own severed, razor-fingered glove. Sadly, this means that the final blow comes from Lori, who promptly hacks off Freddy’s head while Jason sinks into the lake, his rage and energy apparently spent from the battle. However, Jason rises again not long after, emerging from the lake and palming Freddy’s severed head, though Freddy does deliver a wink to the audience to basically lead the ultimate victor ambiguous (though Jason clearly won!)

The Summary:
I was so excited for Freddy vs. Jason back in the day; even as a tentative horror fan, I knew what a big deal this throwdown was and I remember glancing at some of the proposed scripts online in the years before it was officially announced and thinking how cool it would be to see the two finally go at it. The end result is, honestly, a bit of a mixed bag; on the one hand, Freddy vs. Jason spends way too much time with its teens, many of whom just aren’t that interesting, and endlessly repeating the plot to the audience like we can’t understand the simple concept of Freddy fighting Jason! On the other hand, you need victims for the killers to torment and slice up, so of course you expect them in a slasher movie and, while many of their performances are questionable and the characteristics are shallow, they’re serviceable enough in this regard, even if Monica Keena doesn’t quite fit the bill of the virginal Final Girl. Still, even if these were the greatest teen characters, the selling point is seeing the two killers go at it and, certainly, Freddy vs. Jason delivers. We have to sit through a lot of nonsense to get to it, but the film does a serviceable job of merging these two franchises into one without any major alterations of continuity, and it’s so worth it once the two throw down. While, yes, it is disappointing that the iconic Kane Hodder wasn’t involved, this is one of my favourite versions of Jason; he’s been slowed down a bit and his physicality accentuated, but the portrayal of him as this mindless killing machine who doesn’t know any better and is driven by rage really makes for a surprisingly tragic anti-hero to root for when faced with the more spiteful and malicious Freddy, thankfully returned to his darker roots and played with manic glee by Robert Englund. In the end, it’s Freddy vs. Jason; if you’re expecting something deeper and life-changing then you’re obviously in the wrong room. I paid to see these two chop the shit out of each other and slice up some hapless teens, and the film definitely meets this criteria with some fun and brutal gore, especially once the two start trading blows, ad the film is, overall, far better than it had any right to be given the premise and lengthy development period.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Did you enjoy Freddy vs. Jason? Which slasher were you rooting for and were you satisfied with the ending? What did you think to the merging of these two franchises and the constant repetition of the main plot? Which of the teens was your favourite and how important do you think these characters are in a slasher movie? What were your favourite kills in the film and did you enjoy seeing Freddy and Jason go at it? Would you like to see other horror icons have a showdown like this and, if so, who? Whatever you thought about Freddy vs. Jason and horror crossovers, leave a comment below or on my social media and check back my other Freddy vs. Jason content across the site!

Back Issues [Crossover Crisis]: Jason vs. Leatherface

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In April 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) released and saw the temporary destruction of the “Multiverse”. To celebrate this momentous event, I’m discussing multiversal crossovers all throughout April in an event I dubbed “Crossover Crisis”.

Writers: Nancy A. Collins and David Imhoff – Artist: Jeff Butler

Story Title: “Goin’ South”
Published: October 1995

Story Title: “A Day in the Life…”
Published: November 1995

Story Title: “Face Off”
Published: January 1996

The Background:
Following on the heels of John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), which popularised the “slasher” sub-genre of horror cinema, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) proved to be a box office success, justifying the release of numerous sequels. Immediately, the slasher franchise became synonymous with its unstoppable, machete-wielding, hockey mask-wearing killer, Jason Voorhees (Various), a horror icon who has transcended the genre, becoming a mainstream figure who has branched out into videogames, toys, and various comic books. These would explore Jason’s complex mythology and pit him against other horror icons and, in fact, this latter gimmick was used in his very first comic book appearance as Jason ended up befriending Jedidiah Sawyer/Leatherface and his cannibalistic family in this curious and oft-forgotten three-issue series. Leatherface, of course, first appeared in the highly controversial and influential Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974), to which all masked slashers owe a great debt. Thanks to a myriad of sequels, remakes, and requels, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise has suffered from the law of diminishing returns at times, though Leatherface and his iconic chainsaw remains a prominent horror figure. Given their childlike demeanours, violent bloodlust, and their unsettling family relationships, I guess it made sense for Topps Comics to have the two square off in this limited series, especially as the legal issues surrounding the long-awaited clash between Jason and Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund) wouldn’t be resolved for some time.

The Review:
Our story begins as most Friday the 13th films do: with a bit of context about Crystal Lake, affectionately known to the locals as “Camp Blood” thanks to the actions of Pamela Voorhees and her zombie-like killer of a son, Jason. Given that this comic was published in 1995, the most recent film was Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Marcus, 1993), one of two ultimately unsuccessful attempts to finally do Jason in for good, which explains Jason’s somewhat odd-looking appearance. He’s kind of a mixture of his look from Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Hedden, 1989) and Jason Goes to Hell, meaning his bulbous head is kind of eating into his mask. He also starts the story still chained to the bottom of Crystal Lake, indicating that this comic book takes place sometime after Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (McLoughlin, 1986) rather than after Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (Buechler, 1988) since he hasn’t decayed enough to resemble his look in that film. Honestly, trying to figure out where or even if this comic fits into the already spotty Friday the 13th timeline (or with that of the equally troublesome Texas Chainsaw Massacre films) is a fool’s errand; it’s better to just say it’s an alternative tale that takes place after Jason Lives and the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Anyway, the story sees Crystal Lake abandoned due to Jason’s many rampages; in its place is a big industrial factory that pumps its waste into the lake, contaminating it so badly that its owners, Linhart Amalgamated, decide to cut their losses and ditch the lake entirely so they can build a fancy business district on its foundations. Naturally, they do this on the cheap, but the dredging is successful and sees the polluted water and its toxic waste loaded onto containers and transported across the country via barge, truck, and train.

When Jason finds himself in Texas, he’s welcomed into the grotesque Sawyer family.

This sees Jason forcibly extracted from his underwater prison and reanimates him, just as the local crazy warned, and he bursts out of his confinement in such a rage that he chops up a train-hopping hobo and his doggy! Jason then barges into the control carriage and kills the relaxing train conductors, splitting the head of one right down the middle with his machete! The train consequently derails and dramatically explodes, leaving Jason lost in the woods of “Sawyerville” in Texas, where he’s just about to hack up some poor randomer when he’s interrupted by Nubbins Sawyer/The Hitchhiker and Leatherface, who are also chasing the terrified man. Encouraged by the Hitchhiker, Leatherface and Jason immediately go at it, with Jason somehow able to deflect Leatherface’s chainsaw with his machete and knock it from his hands. However, the two brutish killers share an intense look as they clash weapons and Jason chooses to behead the victim and peacefully hand Leatherface his chainsaw, earning him the admiration of the Hitchhiker. Against his very nature, Jason is compelled to follow the two back to their humble abode, which is adorned with decorations made from the flesh and bones of their victims, which are also cooked up for the family to eat by Drayton Sawyer/The Cook. When the Hitchhiker and the Cook applaud Jason’s killing skills and berate Leatherface, the hockey masked killer wanders upstairs to find the unmasked Leatherface blubbering. Sensing a kindred spirit in the hulking cannibal, Jason silently invites him downstairs to join the family for dinner, specifically the Cook, the Hitchhiker, the bloated corpse of Aunt Amelia, and decrepit former butcher Grandpa Sawyer. Though struggling with the alien emotions bubbling within his enraged mind, Jason feels so comfortable and accepted with the cannibalistic misfits that he communicates his name to them by writing on the wall with “Kool-Aid” (that’s most likely just blood) and being welcomed to the family.

When Jason sees the way the Hitchhiker treats Leatherface, it unearths some bad memories.

Jason stays with the family, even resting in his own bedroom, where his dreams are dominated by flashbacks to when he drifted out to sea and almost drowned as a child. Tensions quickly rise as the Hitchhiker insults Jason by demanding he take off his mask and eat some scrambled brains, and then attacks Leatherface after being reprimanded by the Cook, which gives Jason a flashback to the violence he suffered at the hands of his abusive father. The Cook briefly placates Jason with a tour of the house, showing off the macabre kitchen, where fresh bodies hang on meat hooks, human meat is stored in the freezer, and more bodies are cooked up in the smokehouse. The Cook takes an immediate shine to Jason, approving of his friendship with Leatherface and sharing his dreams to one day serve his unique food to the social elite. After showing off his long-dead dog to Jason, the Hitchhiker is ordered to the family gas station, where he creeps out a travelling couple. He then rushes back to recruit Leatherface to pick up the “groceries”, but the Cook suggests he take Jason out instead to show him their ways. The Hitchhiker attacks the man with a hammer, bashing his brains in, and admonishes Jason for throttling the woman to death too quickly as the Sawyers enjoy hearing them squeal and, while the Cook is disappointed that the dead bodies aren’t younger, it’s a successful trip for the cannibals. The Hitchhiker then excitedly shows off his art collection to Jason, a room full of dead bodies that have been turned into chairs and other furniture. He delights in showing off a lamp, plant pot, and chair all made from skulls and bones and his pride and joy: a corpse dressed up as Santa Claus with a red lightbulb for a nose! When Leatherface sneaks in and accidentally destroys the Hitchhiker’s chair, the maniacal Sawyer beats his dim-witted sibling mercilessly, berating him the entire time and again causing Jason to remember how his own father routinely beat and demeaned him before his mother (strangely called “Doris” here) cleaved his head in with a machete. Accordingly, Jason defends Leatherface, though the Hitchhiker is less than impressed since he can’t actually feel pain.

When the relationship breaks down, Jason finds himself ostracised and longing for home.

When Jason moves to stab the Hitchhiker with a bone, Leatherface steps in and Jason retires to the house, troubled by his hesitation and recent behaviour. He ends up in the attic, longing for simpler times at Camp Crystal Lake, and the Cook comes to find him and apologise for the Hitchhiker’s behaviour. He also reveals that he set aside his dreams to look after the family as a promise to their mother, his sister, Velma, suggesting a degree of inbreeding in the family, and asks Jason to help him get Grandpa downstairs for dinner. The Hitchhiker continues to scold Leatherface, however; after accusing the mongoloid of reading his comic books, the Hitchhiker beats him in a rage, again compelling Jason to defend his friend. This time, it earns him a switchblade to the chest, which naturally doesn’t faze the hulking murderer, and Jason tears the house apart in pursuit of the maniacal Hitchhiker. Angered at Jason’s outburst, which sees Aunt Amelia beheaded, the Cook tries to stop him with a meat cleaver and a chase ensues, with Jason smashing into the kitchen and preparing to eviscerate the two before Leatherface bursts in with his chainsaw whirring. After a moment’s hesitation, Leatherface strikes, slicing Jason’s stomach and rekindling his rage; incensed at the betrayal, Jason buries his machete in Leatherface’s shoulder and the two go at it. Leatherface suffers a deep cut to the wrist but fails to land a blow of his own before the Hitchhiker bashes Jason’s head in with a hammer. Although the Hitchhiker is eager to treat Jason the same as anyone else, the Cook doesn’t feel right about eating him; not only did he genuinely like Jason, he suspects his meat wouldn’t be too appetising so he decides that he deserves a decent send off. Despite their differences, Leatherface angrily insists that Jason keep his mask on and the family drive Jason’s brained body to the nearby lake, where they tie cinder blocks to his angles, put his machete in his lifeless hand, and dump him in with a ceremonial kick. This is enough to spark Jason back to life; he cuts through his bonds and rises from the lake, briefly tempted to slaughter the Sawyers for their betrayal, but deciding that he’s had enough of strange people and strange places and begins the long walk back to Crystal Lake and the comfort of the familiar.

The Summary:
This was an interesting anomaly of a comic; there’s definitely some crossover appeal between Jason and Leatherface and I think the story did a decent job of painting the two as kindred spirits, but I don’t think it fully lived up to this potential. This was more like Jason Meets the Sawyers since, while he does fight Leatherface very briefly twice throughout the story, he’s more touring their house and being welcomed into their family. I think one thing that’s kind of crucial for any crossover is seeing each character in the other’s location, but we don’t get that here as Jason spends the entire story in Texas, mostly in the Sawyer house, and I think it might have benefitted from having Jason and Leatherface spend more time together, killing randomers, and then demonstrating their differences in their methods. Leatherface is, essentially, a butcher, artist, and child-like figure but the comic only really delves into the last aspect of his personality. While this works in creating parallels between the way the Hitchhiker treats him and the way Jason’s father abused him, it doesn’t always land as the comic is understandably more interested in pairing Jason with characters who can actually talk beyond animalistic grunts.

While the two don’t fight much, they’re positioned as thematic parallels and the art’s suitably gory.

The artwork is pretty good; very exaggerated and stylised, but suitably gory and I really enjoyed the depiction of the Sawyer house, though it does seem like the story suffers from padding a bit as it stops to explore the Cook’s unrealised dreams and the Hitchhiker’s art collection. Because of this, I wonder if it might’ve been better as two thirty-page issues rather than being a three-issue arc as then we could’ve gotten to the titular fight a little faster. When Jason and Leatherface do fight, it’s very brief and not very bloody; neither really inflict much damage on each other and it just suddenly and anti-climatically ends when the Hitchhiker bashes Jason’s brains in. I enjoyed the text boxes that tried to explore Jason’s mindset and conflict over why he’s spared the family and chosen to stay with them, but at times it seems to be openly criticising the paper thin plot and the nonsensical reason behind why he would choose to stay with them. The narrative also suffers from repetition and constant flip-flopping; one minute Leatherface and Jason are buddies, sharing an unspoken bond, and the next Leatherface is attacking Jason with a chainsaw since he dared to raise a hand to the Hitchhiker. Similarly, the story repeats the same thread of Jason stepping in to defend Leatherface from the Hitchhiker more than once and it’s not really clear why the second time leads to a bigger falling out other than the story needing to end. Consequently, things get a bit muddled and boring considering it’s only three issues long, which is again why I think a two issue special would’ve been better. Still, it’s a fun little curio; the artwork is good, the gore is enjoyable, and the attempt to shed some light on Jason’s childhood and somewhat humanise him through Leatherface was admirable, if flawed. I’d actually like to see this done again, perhaps with a painted, gritty art style and a tighter plot, but it was inoffensive enough, if a bit forgettable.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to the showdown between Jason and Leatherface? Were you disappointed that they only fought a couple of times and that it was rather brief? Did you enjoy seeing Jason interact and bond with the Sawyer family? What did you think to the Hitchhiker and the focus on exploring the family’s…unique lifestyle? Which horror icons would you like to see clash in a comic or movie? What’s your favourite Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre film? Whatever your thoughts on this horror crossover, feel free to leave them in the comments or on my social media.

Movie Night [Friday the 13th]: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

Dr. K5 Comments

Long considered to be an unlucky day due to superstitions involving the number thirteen and religious connotations, Friday the 13th is perhaps equally as well-known as being the title of a long-running series of slasher movies. As a result, this is clearly the best opportunity to take a look at the Friday the 13th (Various, 1980 to 2009) horror series and to commemorate this unlucky and dreaded date.

Released: 13 April 1984
Director: Joseph Zito
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $2.6 million
Stars: Kimberly Beck, Corey Feldman, Joan Freeman, Crispin Glover, E. Erich Anderson, Barbara Howard, and Ted White

The Plot:
Immediately after Friday the 13th Part 3 (Miner, 1982), masked maniac Jason Voorhees (White) escapes from a morgue and returns to Crystal Lake to continue his killing spree. His victims include a fresh batch of teenage vacationers, secretive hiker Rob Dier (Anderson), and locals Tracy Jarvis (Freeman), Trish (Beck), and young son Tommy (Feldman), who must make a desperate last stand against the deformed murderer.

The Background:
Hot on the heels of John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), which essentially gave birth to the “slasher” genre of horror cinema, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) became an unexpected box office success. Despite producer/director Sean S. Cunningham distancing himself from the franchise and continued negative reviews, both Friday the 13th Part 2 (Miner, 1981) and Friday the 13th Part 3 were financial successes. However, Paramount executives began to be embarrassed by their association with the shlock franchise and, after their initial plans to end the series with the third film fell through, actively planned to close the book on Jason for good with this fourth film. Director Joseph Zito came onboard after receiving compensation for both writing and directing duties, but secretly worked with writer Barney Cohen on the script, which featured not just two survivors instead of the traditional one but also a child protagonist and a relatable family unit at the heart of the horror. Special effects maestro Tom Savini returned to work on the film’s make-up and practical effects, giving him the chance to not only redesign Jason once more but also kill the character off in gruesomely spectacular fashion. Up-and-coming child actor Corey Feldman won the role of Tommy Jarvis, and his character’s love of special effects was a homage to Savini, but Jason actor and stuntman Ted White reportedly didn’t get along with his young, bratty co-star during filming. Though the actor rarely talks about his involvement and only took the job for a pay cheque, the film also gained notoriety for actor Crispin Glover’s absolutely bonkers dance routine and for a lost alternative ending that was only recently partially restored. With a final box office gross of $33 million, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter made less than the third film but more than the second, and still significantly more than its $2.6 million budget, making it a commercial success. The film was equally lambasted by scathing reviews that branded it a by-the-numbers retread of its predecessors that focused on gore and sex more than telling a coherent story, but many consider it to be one of the best (if not the best) entries in the entire franchise. Tommy Jarvis went on to be regarded as Jason’s archenemy and became a recurring character in the films that followed as, surprise surprise, this “Final Chapter” was nothing of the sort and a fifth film came out just one year later.

The Review:
As many Friday the 13th fans will be aware, these classic slashers are generally divided into a couple of categories: there’s the classic human Jason era (which spans the first four films), the zombie era (which covers the rest of the series), and then sub-categories like the aborted attempt to continue the series without Jason and the remake (and probably even the New Line Cinema movies since they were so bizarre). Although I was aware of Jason as a horror icon, my introduction to him was actually Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (McLoughlin, 1986) so I have a preference for zombie Jason, an unstoppable supernatural force of nature, and this meant that I ended up working my way backwards through the previous films to see how he got to that point. After being disappointed by the first film, surprisingly entertained by the second, and somewhat bored by the third, I have to say that I (like many) consider Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter one of the best in the franchise, and clearly the best of the human Jason films until the remake. Like the last two movies, The Final Chapter opens with flashbacks to the previous films to remind audiences about Jason’s origins, his mother’s rampage, and some of the best kills so far and, crucially, that Jason has survived extreme wounds and trauma. Once we’re all caught up, the film picks up immediately after the end of Friday the 13th Part III; although we don’t get much indication of the fate of Chris Higgins (Dana Kimmell), Jason’s body is bagged up and taken to the morgue after he took an axe to the face, which strongly indicates that Chris hallucinated being attacked by Pamela Voorhees’ decomposing corpse (Marilyn Poucher) since Jason’s body was still in the barn. The details of Jason’s rampage are thus primarily related using footage of Paul Holt’s (John Furey) campfire story rather than the likes of perverted coroner Axel Burns (Bruce Mahler) and his antics are certainly not common knowledge to our newest crop of horny twenty-somethings teenagers (despite Part III’s events making it to the local news).

A fresh batch of horny teens arrives at Crystal Lake, with Ted and Jimmy being the stand outs.

While our new bunch of victims may not be the most interesting group, they’re certainly more likeable than those in Part III and are made up of just enough personalities to not be completely paper thin, disposable meat bags. What we have here are two sets of couples – Paul Guthrie (Alan Hayes) and Samantha Lane (Judie Aronson), Doug Bell (Peter Barton) and Sara Parkington (Barbara Howard) – and friends Ted Cooper/Teddy Bear (Lawrence Monoson) and Jimmy Mortimer (Glover). Sara stands out somewhat from the others (and her counterparts) in that she’s a shy and awkward virgin; despite being in a relationship with Doug, she’s unsure of herself and nervous about having sex, which is in stark contrast to Sam, who is a fully self-confident lover. However, there’s no animosity between them; they have a heartfelt discussion about the matter, and what it means to have a sexual reputation, and Sam is constantly encouraging Sara to be more carefree. Doug doesn’t make much of an impression beyond being a pretty patient and caring kinda guy; he doesn’t pressure Sara into sex or cheat on her, and is probably the most unremarkable as a result. Not that Paul fares much better; despite being with Sam, he’s easily swayed once twins Tina and Terri Moore (Camilla and Carey More) are absorbed into the group. He completely misses that Tina’s flirting with him, upsetting Sam and causing her to take an impromptu skinny dip in the lake and end up butchered as a result, and he’s fittingly impaled through the groin with a harpoon after he finally realises that he’s neglected his lover. Of the group, it’s Ted and Jimmy who make the most immediate impression; Jimmy has just been dumped and is feeling both lovelorn and horny, while Ted is an overconfident jokester who believes his wit and smart mouth are irresistible to girls. Ted riles his friend up by branding him a “dead fuck” and tries every trick in his playbook to get into the pants of both Tina and Terri, only to be rebuked at every opportunity and end up cackling at old timey pornography while high off his nut. It’s Jimmy who ends up coming out more successful in his endeavours; after Paul realises he’s been a dick and ditches her, Tina turns her attentions to Jimmy (despite his outrageous dance moves) and his sexual prowess is finally vindicated, much to his delight, though his joy is short-lived as he is killed by Jason soon after, leaving him a literal dead fuck.

The local Jarvis family is targeted by Jason’s wrath, leaving Trish and young Tommy to fend him off.

This gaggle of colourful characters are only half the story, however, for they rent a cabin that neighbours the home of the Jarvis family, a loving family unit consisting of doting mother Tracy, tomboyish daughter Trish, and mischievous Tommy. From a throwaway piece of dialogue between Tracy and Trish, we can infer that the family recently went through a divorce or, at the very least, a trial separation as their patriarch is nowhere to be seen and relations between him and Tracy are frosty, at best. Thankfully, there’s no tension, resentment, or bickering between these three; Tracy chastises Tommy for playing Zaxxon (SEGA, 1983) too loud and for needing a haircut, but it’s nothing overbearing or controlling. She compliments his mask-making skills, encourages Trish to visit her father to keep their relationship alive, and, if anything, the three are a bit too sickly sweet with their healthy affections for each other. While Tracy and Trish regularly jog together and Tracy is happy (if a little perturbed) for her daughter to socialise with others her age, Tommy is the stand out of the family. Not only is he the quintessential eighties kid (he loves videogames, horror movies, and has a passion for mask and model making that exceeds his youth), Tommy’s also a budding mechanic, regularly being called upon by Trish to fix her unreliable car, and (like many young boys) is transfixed by the rampant female nudity and sexual activity right on his doorstep, much to his mother and sister’s chagrin. While a cheeky smart aleck who’s a little too smart for his own good at times, Tommy is basically a good kid who cares for his mother and sister, and is left scared out his mind when the bodies start piling up next-door and cinema’s most famous hockey-masked killer comes literally crashing into their house. While Trish risks her life trying to lure Jason away to protect her kid brother, Tommy makes the bold decision to use Jason’s past against him, quickly shaving and cutting his hair so that he resembles the hulking murderer as a small boy and then finally ending the fiend’s life with repeated maniacal swings of his trademark machete.

Jason is stronger and madder than ever, easily overpowering and cutting down even his most driven victims.

Indeed, while Jason is more powerful than ever before and none of the main group of teens has any hope of fending him off, he actually comes up against not one but two relatively formidable foes here. We see an interesting new side to Jason’s actions in this film; The Final Chapter opens with cops and coroners cleaning up his crime scene and, when his supposedly dead body is being wheeled to the morgue, we see grieving families to really hammer home that these characters we so often see as disposable actually have lives and families, which is best exemplified in Rob, a nomad with a working knowledge of Jason’s past, his mother, and his killing spree thanks not only to researching the killer but also because he’s the brother of Sandra (Marta Kober) from Friday the 13th Part 2. Although he comes across as quite shady at first, both Tommy and Trish take a shine to the hunky stranger; Tommy jumps at the chance to show off his monster masks and Trish is horrified to learn that so much bloodshed haunts her hometown. Rob’s mission to track down and kill Jason and avenge his sister is an admirable one but, though he comes physically and intellectually armed, he’s ultimately no match for the killer and is bludgeoned to death in overly comical fashion when surprised by Jason in the basement. While Trish very much fits the mould of a “Final Girl”, having largely avoided Jason’s rampage, stumbling upon the bloodied corpses he’s left in his wake, and being the last “man” standing by the finale, it’s actually Tommy who steps up as an unexpected hero in the end. Jason really isn’t messing around this time; at this point, he’s been on a rampage for about three days and it’s clear that he’s getting more and more pissed off at all the horny teens stomping around his grounds. Whenever he spots one, he goes for them without hesitation, stalking from the shadows and striking with a noticeable brutality; he’s much more apt to use his superhuman strength to crush and manhandle his victims this time around, and his body language screams unbridled rage. He explodes through the Jarvis’s window, crushes skulls, and skewers kids all over the place, but is also smart enough to both take advantage of the darkness and rain to surprise his prey and cut off their phone lines, making for an exceptionally driven and ferocious version of the famous killer.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Thankfully, unlike Part III, which opted for a weird disco track in place of the classic Friday the 13th theme, Harry Manfredini refocuses on the iconic musical beats and the “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma” so synonymous with the series, but bolsters it with a faster, more action-packed tone that delivers probably the best Friday the 13th score so far as it has the right mixture of dread and adrenaline to keep you engaged with the tension or bloody action onscreen. While every Friday the 13th is full of sex and violence, The Final Chapter offers some different takes on the former: Axel is a horny coroner more interested in perving over girls both dead and alive than he is about showing any kind of compassion, and his fixation on the female form makes him an easy victim once Jason awakens; Sam is nervous about her first time but nonetheless excited to actually have the moment happen; Jimmy is fixated on his sexual performance and as desperate to get laid as Teddy but benefits from Tina being a bit of a slut and happy to settle for him after being rejected by Paul. There’s a bit of a parallel here between Tina and Sam; earlier, Sara alluded to Sam having a reputation, but she was perfectly happy being exclusive to Paul, whereas Tina unashamedly throws herself at Paul and only settles for Jimmy after Paul turns her down, and even then she puts Paul’s baseball cap on Jimmy’s head and has sex with him in Paul’s bedroom (though she seems legitimately into him after they have sex). This brazen sexuality indirectly leads to both Paul and Sam’s death, and both Jimmy and Tina are targeted by Jason soon after, but even a loved-up couple like Doug and Sara (and Terri, who doesn’t engage in any sexual activity) also pay the price for even being associated with such debauchery.

The Final Chapter has some sudden and brutal kills that shine even with the mandatory cuts.

The Final Chapter is bolstered by some of the best-looking kills in the series thanks to special effects wizard Tom Savini, who had really honed his craft since the first film. While much of the gore and violence was disappointingly cut to secure a marketable rating, we’re still left with some brutal kills that really reinforce Jason’s newfound rage and cruelty. Axel may not get his head twisted around by Jason’s bare hands, but a hacksaw to the throat is a pretty horrific way to go and Jason is far more interesting with a surgical scalpel than his Halloween counterpart. Previously, Jason slaughtered anyone who ventured onto his territory, but he initially has to make his way back to Crystal Lake and thus makes short work of a frustrated hitchhiker (Bonnie Hellman) by stabbing her through the next with a spear; there’s no finesse to Jason in this movie, he’s all about blunt, brutal, efficient kills and has really mastered taking his victims by surprise. While out on the lake, frustrated that Paul didn’t immediately follow her and at risk of hypothermia, Sam is caught completely unawares when Jason pops out of the water and pays homage to his mother by skewering her through the belly with a spear. After freaking out upon discovering her body, Paul desperately swims to shore only to get impaled through the groin by Jason’s spear gun and, in a perfect example of just how powerful Jason is now, he’s lifted clear off the ground for the killer to fire the spear for the coup de grâce. Easily the lamest kill is Tracy’s, which isn’t even shown as the film opts for a jump cut instead; even Terri and Tina fare slightly better than this and they’re simply framed by a flash of lightning and a brief shot hitting the house and thrown from a window, respectively. Two of the film’s most memorable kills are Rob’s exaggerated bludgeoning after finally coming face-to-face with his sister’s killer and Jimmy’s fruitless search for a corkscrew, which sees him impaled though the hand by said tool and then whacked in the face with a meat clever in a death somewhat reminiscent of my favourite kill from Part 2. Teddy ultimately ends up stabbed in the back of the head through a projection screen, which is a pretty sudden and simple kills, while Doug gets his head crushed against the bathroom tiles and Sara takes a wicked axe right to the chest!

Tommy puts an end to Jason’s massacre, and his life, but is left traumatised by the experience.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, by accident or design, adheres very closely to the formula of its predecessors while also turning it on its head a bit. The addition of a normal, everyday family alone mixes things up and offers a contrast (and a refreshing break) from all the usual slasher depravity we know and love, and having a character like Rob, someone who knows all about Jason and is fixated on ending him once and for all, had a lot of potential. Sadly, Rob doesn’t live up to this, ending up as another red herring, but we’d actually see Tommy later fulfil a similar role when he returned in Jason Lives. When Trish is reduced to a panic-stricken, screaming, rainswept mess for the finale, tripping over bodies and running for her life, it seems as though we’re in store for pretty much the same climax we’d seen three times before but The Final Chapter takes a leaf out of Part 2’s playbook by having a character manipulate Jason using his past to render him temporarily stunned. Being stabbed in the neck, having a television smashed over his head, and taking a machete to the hand Jason can shrug off without much more than an annoyed growl but whip on his mother’s jumper or shave your head to evoke his childhood and the hulking brute is left perplexed. This leaves him wide open for Trish’s counterattack, but rather than repeat the beheading sequence of the first film, Trish succeeds only in knocking off Jason’s mask and exposing his ugly mug once more. For a moment, it almost seems as though Trish is going to break the trend and end up being killed by Jason, but Tommy surprisingly takes up the bloody machete and drives it right into Jason’s head! The impact of this wily little kid suddenly ramming a blade into one of cinema’s most notorious killers is shocking enough, but the way Jason’ falls to his knees and then lands face-first on the floor, driving the machete right through his skull, his eye twitching sickeningly as his head is split open, makes for one of the most gruesome kills in the entire series! In a testament to Jason’s relentlessness, even this isn’t immediately fatal and, when Tommy spots the killer’s claw-like hand twitching, he goes to town on Jason, screaming “Die! Die! Die!!” over and over as the film fades to white (a common trope often used to indicate death in the series and which usually accompanied the brutal murder of Jason’s other victims). There’s no question here that Jason is dead, hacked to bloody chunks by his own weapon, and the ending is about as definitive as you can get for the hockey-masked-killer, but The Final Chapter can’t resist giving us a last minute stinger as Tommy hugs his sister and shoots a look at the camera which suggests that he’s been fundamentally traumatised by the events he witnessed and his surprisingly brutal bloodthirstiness. As much as I enjoy Tommy as a recurring heroic figure, I often find myself wondering what would’ve happened to the franchise if he had become the new killer and taken up Jason’s mask and machete, but sadly we’ll never really know as Jason’s marketability was just too strong to replace him.  

The Summary:
It’s not always easy being a Friday the 13th fan. Have you ever sat down and watched all the films back-to-back? It can be exhausting, especially with the first five films as they’re all so similar and very rarely deviated from the pacing and standard set by the first film. Sure, the kids were different, the kills got better (or were more cut), and some wrinkles were added here and there to expand upon (and contradict) Jason’s backstory, but it’s easy to see how formulaic the franchise was even back then. Still, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is a breath of fresh air that’s as enjoyable as the second film; thanks to not being burdened by a pointless 3D gimmick like Part III, the film can focus on giving us some fun and interesting (if, naturally, a little one-dimensional) group of new victims and delivering on the promise of sex and gore that these films offer. The movie mixes up the formula with both the vengeful Rob and the Jarvis family, two elements which add a little extra spice to the plot and showcase the devastating consequences of Jason’s killing spree. This is easily my favourite version of human Jason before the remake came along; brutal and unrelenting, he’s more of a force of nature than ever, pouncing upon his victims and ending them with a merciless rage that becomes palpable by the finale, where he’s just tossing bodies through windows, ripping bloodied corpses from walls, and crashing through windows to get at the Jarvis’s. Having Jason meet such a definitive end not by the hands of Rob or a Final Girl, but by a child (one who impersonates Jason, no less) was a brilliantly unexpected twist and, even now, it’s clear that the filmmakers wanted this to be the final end to the killer’s massacre and I still wonder where the franchise would be if they’d actually followed through with that. Some fun, if outrageous, performances by the likes of Crispin Glover and Lawrence Monoson help make the kids more than just disposable victims, but by this point audiences we here for two things: Jason and the kills, and The Final Chapter has both well covered thanks to the work of Tom Savini. Overall, this is easily my favourite of the human Jason era of the franchise; it’s as cliché and formulaic as its predecessors at times, but mixes things up just enough to be far more engaging and I’ll never get tired of seeing that machete sink through Jason’s skull over and over!

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

What did you think to Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter? How do you feel it holds up against its predecessors and its many sequels? Which of the new characters was your favourite and why, and were you a fan of Tommy? Would you have liked to see more from Rob? Which of the kills was your favourite, and were you shocked to see Jason killed off here? Would you have liked to see Tommy take over as the new killer? Which of the Friday the 13th movies is your favourite? Do you consider Friday the 13th to be unlucky? Are you watching a Friday the 13th movie today? Whatever your thoughts on Friday the 13th (the movie, franchise, and day), go ahead and leave them down below and be sure to check in again for more horror content in the near future!

Movie Night [Friday the 13th]: Friday the 13th Part 3

Dr. K2 Comments

Long considered to be an unlucky day due to superstitions involving the number thirteen and religious connotations, Friday the 13th is perhaps equally as well-known as being the title for a long-running series of slasher movies. As a result, this is clearly the best opportunity to take a look at the Friday the 13th (Various, 1980 to 2009) horror series and to commemorate this unlucky and dreaded date.

Released: 13 August 1982
Director: Steve Miner
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $2.2 million
Stars: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Larry Zerner, Gloria Charles, and Richard Brooker

The Plot:
Chris Higgins (Kimmell) and her colourful group of friends travel to her childhood home in Crystal Lake only to raise the ire of a local gang of bikers. This threat is quickly surpassed by the presence of nigh-superhuman killer Jason Voorhees (Brooker), who has taken refuge near the house after being wounded and is eager to continue his killing spree on a new crop of unsuspecting victims.

The Background:
After the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), which essentially birthed the “slasher” genre, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) proved such a box office success (despite its many critics) that a sequel as pushed intro production, albeit without the involvement of producer/director Sean S. Cunningham. Although not as successful as the first film, the sequel’s domestic box office of over $21 million more than justified a third entry in the blood-soaked slasher franchise. Early drafts for the third film saw Ginny Field (Amy Steel) return, now confined to a mental hospital, and Petru Popescu was disappointed when casting for his characters became more about looks than actual talent. With 3D cameras and all the rage at the time, Paramount Pictures decided to capitalise and the experimental new technology meant even simple shots became a long, gruelling process more about hitting the camera than putting in a good performance. The script called for Jason to wear a mask and his now-iconic hockey mask was supplied by 3D effects supervisor Martin Sadoff; a Detroit Red Wings goaltender mask served as the basis for the face-covering, which would go on to become one of the most recognisable elements in all of horror. With a box office gross of over $36 million, Friday the 13th Part 3 managed to out-do its predecessor (while still falling short of matching the first film’s gross) but was met with the same mixed-to-negative critical response; the plot was considered derivative but the 3D effects were seen as an enjoyable inclusion that was sullied by the tiresome clichés. Despite its low critical impact and being planned as the series finale, the Friday the 13th Part 3 ’s box office success meant that a fourth film was pushed into production, one that absolutely, positively spelt the end for the franchise…for a time…

The Review:
Just as the last film began with a recap of the finale of the first film, so too does Friday the 13th Part 3 kick things off by presenting viewers with the final showdown between Ginny and Jason (then-played by Steve Dash) that saw her trick the bag-headed killer into submission by impersonating his deceased mother, Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), and leave him vulnerable to getting a machete stuck in his shoulder. We continue to get information regarding the events of the last film via a news report, which reveals that Ginny did survive but still leaves the fate of her boyfriend, Paul Holt (John Furey), unanswered. The third film properly begins with Jason pulling out the machete and heading out into the night once more, but now played by a different actor and stalking the nearby woods and area of Crystal Lake with his head exposed (though hidden from view, for the time being). Jason stalks with argumentative store owners Harold Hockett (Steve Susskind) and Edna (Cheri Maugans), an odd couple who receive a great deal of screen time considering they’re just there to get the body count started, throw some terrible 3D effects in our face, and establish how Jason acquires his new duds.

Chris returns to Higgins Haven, where bland ol’ Rick and some bad memories await.

Following this painfully long and pointless sequence (and some extremely funky title music courtesy of series composer Harry Manfredini and Michael Zager), we’re finally introduced to the new crop of twenty-somethings-posing-as-teenagers who will serve as our main characters this time around. Andy (Jeffrey Rogers) and his pregnant lover Debbie (Tracie Savage) are excited to be travelling down to Higgins Haven at Crystal Lake with their friend, Chris, a perky girl troubled by an incident at her family home two years ago but trying to not let the traumatic attack she endured ruin the weekend for her rambunctious friends. When the group get to Crystal Lake and Chris reunites with old flame Rick (Kratka, who seems way too old for her but who am I to judge?), we learn that, somehow, Chris was attacked by Jason (as he appears now) while wandering the woods near Higgins Haven. Horrified, she tried to escape and fight him off, only to black out and be found by her parents, who insisted that she must have imaging the entire thing. However, her memories are so vivid and her fear and disquiet at being back at Crystal Lake are so potent that it could only have been real, though it’s unclear as to why Jason spared her and the sexual implications of the attack are both unsettling and contrary to Jason’s usual characterisation.

Despite being an annoying prankster, Shelly shows some personality and forever impacted the series.

While Andy might be a bit of a generic, forgettable young man, his roommate and best friend, Shelly (Zerner), is memorable to the point of being an annoying pain in the ass. A born prankster and practical joker, Shelly suffers from an extreme lack of confidence in his looks and his body and makes up for it by wearing masks, playing pranks on his friends, and generally being an aggravating little shit. Unsurprisingly, his pranks and tomfoolery do little but annoy the others, who constantly berate his antics, and don’t exactly turn on his blind date, Vera Sanchez (Catherine Parks); however, he proves himself to be surprisingly brave and capable when he and Vera get on the wrong side of Fox (Charles) and her biker gang, and Vera warms towards him after seeing how much he loves his mother. While he might be one of the most divisive characters in the entire franchise (you literally either love him or hate him), he proves to be one of the most important characters as Jason acquires his iconic hockey mask after taking it from Shelly, forever cementing his significance to the series.

While the pot-heads don’t add much, the bikers make a big impression despite their limited screen time.

Chris and her friends are joined by a dope-smoking duo of hippies, Chuck Garth (David Katims) and Chili Jachson (Rachel Howard), who primarily exist just to be off their heads the entire time, added to the body count, and throw a few more screams and disparaging remarks towards Jason and Shelly, respectively, however, while shopping for supplies in town, Vera and Shelly run afoul of a mean gang of bikers: Fox, Ali (Nick Savage), and Loco (Kevin O’Brien), who harass them in the store and then smash up Rick’s car after Shelly accidentally knocks over their bikes. While this leads to a moment of bravery from Shelly after Ali pushes him too far, it comes back to bite the kids when the bikers track them down to Higgins Haven and drain the petrol from their van, thus limiting their escape options for the finale. Still, while they’re only onscreen for a short period of time, and despite being secondary antagonists, the three bikers actually showcase a surprising amount of personality; Fox expresses concern at Ali’s plan to burn down the Higgins barn to settle the score, and Ali actually proves to be a resilient and tenacious character as he somehow survives an attack by Jason to make an unexpected comeback for the finale that sees him getting his hand lopped off for his efforts.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Honestly, Friday the 13th Part 3 may have some of the weakest and most forgettable characters of the entire franchise; Shelly might be memorable for his boy-who-cried-wolf antics and the bikers might make an impression with their ripped denim and leather, but Chris is a disappointingly bland final girl. It doesn’t help much that Dana Kimmell really isn’t convincing as an actress here, but I find Chris’s meek personality makes her little more than a hysterical tart driven to the edge rather than a capable, independent young woman. Both Andy and Rick end up being unremarkable male leads; Shelly might be an annoying asshole, but at least he exhibits some personality and isn’t just a bland nice guy who you don’t even care about. Higgins Haven makes for an interesting change of scenery for the franchise as well; rather than the events taking place at an abandoned camp or the nearby town, much of the film is localised at Chris’s childhood home, which includes a massive barn full of hay and a quaint little house full of oddities and trinkets that allow the setting to be both unique and familiar at the same time. The gang do head into town, however, and we get to see a little more of the surrounding area, which is always nice as I find we rarely ever get a chance to explore the goings-on of Crystal Lake in these films.

The 3D effects are often awkward and blatant but of lead to a couple of awesome kills.

Of course, the big selling point of the movie is its inclusion of 3D effects; sadly, however, these are all egregious and pretty poorly realised and amount to shit like snakes, rats, baseball bats, popcorn, severed eyes, yo-yos, fists, and handles being thrust, waved, or shoved right in front of the camera lens in ; we get such “memorable” moments as a snake charging at the camera on a wire, a rat randomly crawling towards us on a plank of wood, a baseball bat held right in front of the camera lens in gratuitous and blatantly obvious shots designed to showcase the out-dated effect. It does, however, lead to two of the film’s more impressive kills when Jason fires a speargun at Vera and crushes Rick’s head, causing his eye to literally pop out of his skull! These prove to be two of the more over-the-top kills in the film as Friday the13th Part 3 opts for simple, brutal kills for the most part: Harold gets an axe to the chest, Edna a knitting needle through the back of the head, and Jason even scores a two-for-one deal when he recreates one of the most memorable kills of the first film and drives a knife through the pregnant Debbie’s chest. Andy is dispatched rather viciously when he gets skewered through the belly while walking upside down, and Shelly gets this throat slit offscreen, which is odd as even Chuck and Chili get onscreen deaths, with Chuck being tossed into an electrical box and the hysterical Chili being impaled by a hot poker.

Jason is a far more sexual and apathetic character and now imbued with superhuman strength.

Although the injuries he received in the second film don’t seem to have slowed him down or even crop up as a weak point here, Jason is clearly licking his wounds in the Higgins Haven barn; we catch fleeting glimpses of him standing in or near the barn, but no clear shots until he hides his grotesque face behind his signature hockey mask. The finale gets into full swing shortly after, meaning lingering shots of Jason’s hands or torso are replaced with full-body shots of him lumbering around with an almost bored swagger; sporting something of a hump and lacking even the wispy hair we saw in the last film, Jason has lost some of his sprightliness but gained the measured, near-superhuman brutality that has since become so synonymous with the character. We see a very different side of Jason this time around; there’s an odd sexual menace to him through the implication that he raped Chris, or at least messed with her in a way beyond simply physically harming her, and his pursuit of her seems to be both personal and sexually charged in a way we haven’t really seen from him before. He toys with her like all his final prey, but Chris is the only final girl that he willingly unmasks in front of; he even leers at her with a wink, showcasing a vindictive intelligence that was missing in the last film. While he grunts and even yells in pain this time around, Jason is now powerful enough to crush skulls with his bare hands and hoist himself up whilst being hung from the neck. Thanks to the timely intervention (and sacrifice) of Ali, Chris is finally able to get her shit together to actually fight back and defend herself,  burying an axe into Jason’s head and seemingly putting him down for good. However, in another homage to the first film, Chris is randomly attacked by the decomposing body of Pamela Voorhees in a dream sequence, and the entire experience seems to have driven her out of her mind.

The Summary:
It can’t be denied that the Friday the 13th formula was getting more than a little stale but this third entry; if you’ve seen the first two, you’ve basically seen everything this film has to offer with the exception of the largely terrible 3D effects. However, if you took away the blatantly weird camera shots and the wire-powered props, there still wouldn’t really be much new of offer in Friday the 13th Part 3. Ooh, it takes place in a barn, how exciting! It’s still the same thing of horny kids making dumb decisions, acting badly, and being picked off one by one by a relentless killer, and this third entry is honestly one of the weakest in the series for me. there are some good points to be found here: the speargun sequence and Rick’s head-crush are memorable (if ridiculous) kills, Shelly showcases more personality than all of the main characters combined, and the bikers are surprisingly charismatic characters who sadly don’t get enough screen time. If you’re a fan of Jason as a character, this isn’t too bad an entry either as he finally acquires his iconic hockey mask and Richard Brooker’s portrayal of Jason as a lumbering, sadistic, almost lackadaisical killer set the standard for others to follow, particularly during his time as a zombie. Still, funky soundtrack and enjoyable gore aside, Friday the 13th Part 3 remains a painfully unimpressive entry; Jason’s motivations are oddly tinged with a sexual menace, his face has taken a notable downgrade, and the overall quality of the performances has taken such a massive step back that it’s hard to really give a shit about anything that’s happening as the character’s we’re supposed to care about are so bland, hysterical, or poorly realised. This is one best rushed through, or skipped over, if you’re doing a Friday the 13th marathon.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to Friday the 13th Part 3? How do you feel it holds up against its predecessors and its many sequels? Which of the new characters was your favourite and why, and what did think to Chris as the final girl? What did you think to the 3D effects used in the film and did you find they distracted from the kills? Which of the Friday the 13th movies is your favourite? Perhaps you prefer a different slasher film or franchise; if so, what is it? Do you consider Friday the 13th to be unlucky? Are you watching a Friday the 13th movie today? Whatever your thoughts on Friday the 13th (the movie, franchise, and day), sign up to tell me your thoughts below or leave a comment on my social media, and be sure to check in again for more horror content in the near future!

Movie Night [Friday the 13th]: Friday the 13th Part 2

Dr. K4 Comments

Long considered to be an unlucky day due to superstitions involving the number thirteen and religious connotations, Friday the 13th is perhaps equally as well-known as being the title for a long-running series of slasher movies. As a result, this is clearly the best opportunity to take a look at the Friday the 13th (Various, 1980 to 2009) horror series and to commemorate this unlucky and dreaded date.

Released: 1 May 1981
Director: Steve Miner
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $1.25 million
Stars: Amy Steel, John Furey, Stu Charno, and Steve Daskewisz

The Plot:
Five years after Pamela Voorhees’ (Betsy Palmer) murder spree, Paul Holt (Furey) and his assistant, Ginny Field (Steel), reopen Camp Crystal Lake and begin fixing the place up and training a new crop of camp counsellors. However, the camp’s “death curse” lives on as Pamela’s backwoods son, Jason (Daskewisz), stalks and relentlessly kills the counsellors one by one.

The Background:
Following the lead of John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), which basically gave birth to the “slasher” sub-genre of horror cinema, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) became a box office success despite many, myself included, criticising the film’s pace and narrative. Still, money talks and plans for a sequel were soon made; initially imagined as an anthology series, it was Paul Scuderi who saw a natural continuation of the first film’s story in the character of Jason Voorhees. After producer/director Sean S. Cunningham distanced himself from the sequel, directing duties fell to Steve Miner; special effects maestro Tom Savini was unable to contribute to the sequel and, while Friday the 13th star Adrienne King did return, an encounter with an obsessed fan saw her role reduced to a cameo and there were numerous accidents and injuries during filming. Though a final domestic box office of over $21 million meant that Friday the 13th Part 2 was a financial success, its gross didn’t quite match that of its predecessor and the film was met with largely negative reviews despite also being praised for its effects work and violence.

The Review:
If, for whatever reason, you’ve never seen Friday the 13th (and honestly I wouldn’t blame you as it’s pretty terrible outside of some fun kills and the shock ending), you don’t really need to worry when watching Friday the 13th Part 2 as the film starts an annoying trend of beginning with a detailed recap of the finale of the first film. This is related to the viewer through returning final girl Adrienne King (Alice Hardy), who is haunted by recurring nightmares of her confrontation with Pamela Voorhees. While this effectively glosses over whether or not Allice’s encounter with young Jason (Ari Lehman) was a dream or actually happened, we later get a pretty in-depth recap of the Voorhees legend courtesy of would-be head camp counsellor Paul Holt, who retcons Jason’s supposed demise to suggest that the boy actually survived drowning in Crystal Lake and has been living in the surrounding woods ever since. Anyway, while Alice does return in this film, her inclusion serves as little more than a glorified cameo and very much the same purpose as the miscellaneous camp counsellors killed by Pamela in the opening of the first film in that she’s there to a) catch us up with the events of the first film and b) serve as cannon fodder for the film’s newest unseen killer.

I found the new crop of victims to be far more likeable and interesting than their predecessors.

The film’s newest crop of unwitting victims is then introduced, with Alice’s death only adding to the terrifying mystique of Crystal Lake; undeterred by Crazy Ralph’s (Walt Gorney) horror stories of nearby “Camp Blood”, Paul has opened up a counsellor training facility with the intention of schooling a new crop of prospective counsellors alongside his girlfriend, Ginny Field. A stickler for health and safety, Paul is a tough but fair taskmaster; he tells the group about Jason straight-up to discourage any wild rumours and encourages them to have fun when not on the job as long as they follow strict rules of conduct when undergoing his training programme. The other prospective camp counsellors include loved-up couple Jeff Dunsberry (Bill Randolph) and Sandra Dier (Marta Kober), fun-loving goofball Ted Bowen (Charno), wheelchair-bound former athlete Mark Jarvis (Tom McBride), sweet and innocent Vickie Perry (Lauren-Marie Taylor), and horny flirts Scott Cheney (Russell Todd) and Terry McCarthy (Kirsten Baker). While each of them have had some experience with counselling before (Paul has also worked alongside Scott and Mark in the past), they are just as flamboyant with their responsibilities and Paul’s rules as their predecessors; despite Camp Crystal Lake being off-limits, Sandra encourages Jeff to investigate the site and Terry commits the ultimate cardinal sin by going skinny-dipping in the lake. Still, they’re a far more memorable bunch than the kids from the first film thanks to being much more laid-back and having far more interesting characteristics: Scott is a bit of a pervy creep but not to the extent that it’s really uncomfortable as in some of the later sequels, Terry has a cute little dog, Mark is determined to get out of his wheelchair at some point, and even Jeff has his harmonica.

With her captivating smile and adaptability, Ginny makes for a strong and impressive Final Girl.

It isn’t much, sure, but they’re far more likeable than any of the cast from the first film. Later Friday the 13th and slasher films made most of the characters such complete assholes that we were actively routing for the killer to bump them off, which was fun, sure, but definitely diminished the threat of the killer. That isn’t the case here, and it’s honestly a little upsetting to see some of them (like Vickie, who genuinely seemed attracted to Mark) go out in such brutal fashion. Nowhere is any of this better realised than in Ginny, who makes an immediate impression by being a far more charismatic leading lady than Alice; with a bright, captivating smile, she delights in winding Paul up and is enthralled by the legend of Jason, feeling an affinity and pity for the boy’s plight at having been bullied, left for dead, and forced to watch his mother be beheaded before his eyes. Interestingly, unlike most “Final Girls”, Ginny is largely absent for the vast majority of the film as she, Paul, and Ted are out with some of the other, inconsequential characters have a bit of a booze-up in town. While this is one of the main reasons she doesn’t get picked off like the others, her adaptability and perseverance also play a large part in her survival, too; where Paul tries to grapple with the killer, Ginny is smart enough to use what she knows of the camp’s legend (and her knowledge of child psychology) to momentarily subdue her pursuer, something that separates her from the vast majority of her successors.

Though hidden for most of the film, it’s pretty clear that Jason is our new killer.

Like the first film, the killer is left unseen for the vast majority of Friday the 13th Part 2. However, I would argue that it’s pretty well telegraphed early on that the killer is Pamela’s son, Jason, since Pam is clearly dead and Jason’s legend is retconned to say he didn’t actually drown in the lake. Though we don’t actually see Jason properly until the finale, we do get to see his grubby hands and his presence is constantly conveyed to us through the return of the iconic “Ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma” theme, and there’s a lingering sense of dread concerning him thanks to characters being acutely aware of him, specifically, rather than the obscure threat of a “death curse”. Jason’s modus operandi is practically identical to his mother’s in that he stalks his victims and strikes when they least expect it but he is far more physical and aggressive in his kills thanks to his near-superhuman strength. However, while he likes to leave dead bodies strewn all over the place like his mother, Jason also employs guerrilla tactics such as bear traps to ensnare his victims. Once he is revealed to the audience, though, he freely employs more direct methods such as bashing through doors and trying to stab Ginny through the roof of her car with a pitchfork!

The Nitty-Gritty:
One thing that really holds Friday the 13th Part 2 back is the simple, inarguable fact that it’s pretty much a carbon-copy of the first film; the entire execution is very much the same as its predecessor: a group of teens at a camp are stalked by an unseen killer and picked off one-by-one until the killer is revealed for the finale. Still, the film definitely benefits from a far better pace, presentation, and more likeable characters; thanks to the events of the first film adding to the urban legend of Crystal Lake, there’s much more meat on the bones here as we have the added element of Jason to help make the “Death Curse” a more tangible horror and there’s an interesting sense of mystery at work as characters openly speculate on Jason’s mindset in a way that was impossible in the first film since no-one really knew anything about the Voorhees’ until the last few minutes.

Of all the film’s brutal kills, Mark’s is easily my favourite for its sudden viciousness.

Like its predecessor and many of its successors, Friday the 13th Part 2 features an abundance of creative kills that were butchered to secure an R-rated; the film begins with a far more graphic kill than its predecessor as Alice is stabbed through the temple by Jason and special effects wizard Carl Fullerton does a commendable job filling in for Tom Savini with brutal kills such as Ralph being garrotted with a piece of wire, Scott having his throat slit, and Jeff and Sandra being impaled with a spear. When Jason’s shack is discovered by Deputy Winslow (Jack Marks), the cop gets a claw hammer to the back of his head for his troubles but by far my favourite kill of the film (and one of my favourites of the entire series) is Mark’s sudden and ferocious death as Jason whacks a machete into his face from just out of frame and leaves him lifelessly trundling down a flight of stairs.

Jason was a fantastic addition to the franchise who made an immediate impression in this film.

Because of this, it’s much more interesting seeing events unfold onscreen as we learn bits and pieces about Jason’s life in the woods without really seeing him up close or delving too deeply into it. He has a grotty little self-made shack with a disturbing shrine to his mother and his victims, which adds a lot of humanity to his character, and there’s a strong implication that he is actively killing because he sees everyone who enters his territory as being responsible for his mother’s death. When Jason is finally revealed, he’s a far cry from the hockey-masked maniac of the next film and beyond; instead; he’s garbed in a simple but incredibly effective burlap sack and shabby overalls that are very much befitting of a backwoods fiend. Jason is given a surprisingly amount of childlike, emotional gravitas when it is revealed that he keeps his mother’s decomposing head and tattered jumper in his shack; when Ginny assumes Pamela’s clothing, Jason immediately stops his rampage and listens to her every word, believing that his beloved mother has returned to life and, despite his face being obscured, his rage at the deception is as clear as day thanks to Daskewisz’s masterful physicality. When Jason’s face is finally revealed, it’s a monstrous sight that, again, serves as one final shock for the film after it appears as though he’s been defeated for good and we’re again left with a vaguely ambiguous ending that suggests Camp Crystal Lake’s nightmare is far from over.

The Summary:
Honestly, it had been a while since I last watched Friday the 13th Part 2 for this review and I went into it fully expecting to rate it as “Terrible” because I remembered it being little more than a redundant retread of the first film but I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it, especially compared to the original. Yes, the basic story is the same (and would be for many of its successors) but the presentation and characters are far better this time around; I found myself actually interested in many of the prospective counsellors, who were much more charismatic and well-rounded despite their limited screen time and characterisation simply because I found them more interesting than any of the characters from the first film. The addition of Jason as the killer, while obvious from the get-go, really added to the film’s mystique; while his depiction is almost exactly the same as his mother’s and there’s still an element of mystery surrounding the killer, the fact that he looms over the camp and the entire film like an ominous shadow makes things much creepier, in my opinion, than a vague “death curse” and an unknown killer. Friday the 13th Part 2 takes everything that worked in its predecessor and enhances them in subtle, but noticeable, ways; while many of the beats are undoubtably the same, the pacing and presentation are a marked improvement, making for a film that’s just as chilling and foreboding but also far more brisk and entertaining rather than being a snooze-fest until the finale like in the first film.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think to Friday the 13th Part 2? How do you feel it holds up against the original and its many sequels? Which of the new characters was your favourite and why, and how do you think Ginny compares to Alice? Did you guess that Jason was the killer and what did you think to his backstory being retconned to allow for this? Which of the Friday the 13th movies is your favourite? Perhaps you prefer a different slasher film or franchise; if so, what is it? Do you consider Friday the 13th to be unlucky? Are you watching a Friday the 13th movie today? Whatever your thoughts on Friday the 13th (the movie, franchise, and day), go ahead and leave a comment down below and be sure to check in again for more horror content in the near future!